*Unofficial* TROUBLESHOOTING Ultima IX: Ascension FAQ at
gulbsoft.de
Ultima IX: Ascension Optimal Settings for D3D Hardware Contents
1. How to Use This File 2. Matrox G200 3. Matrox G400 4. nVidia TNT
5. nVidia TNT2 6. nVidia GeForce 7. ATI Rage Pro 8. ATI Rage 128 9.
S3 Savage 4 10. Riva 128 11. Rendition 2200 12. 3dfx 13. Other D3D
Hardware 1. How to Use This File
===================================== This file contains suggested
settings for a variety of Direct3D cards, for Ultima IX: Ascension
to run properly. You should locate your card in this list, and
configure your options in Ascension according to the instructions
located in that section. The settings listed include which texture
format is optimal for that card, and what mip-mapping settings to
use. 2. Matrox G200 ===================================== Texture
Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: Medium Resolution: 640x480 or
800x600 Notes: The G200 does not support certain multi-texturing
rendering modes used for certain textures ( i.e. trees and windows
). The game should handle this correctly, but if you notice graphic
glitches, you can set the "MultiPassChromakey" entry in your
options.ini file to 0 to fix this. These textures will have a
blocky look to them on the G200. This is normal and is a limitation
of the G200. 3. Matrox G400 =====================================
Texture Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: Medium Resolution:
1024x768 or less Notes: Certain drivers for the G400 cause a crash
in DDHELP.EXE while playing Ascension. Version 5.50 of the drivers
fixes this problem. If you experience this problem, please download
and install the latest drivers from www.matrox.com. 4. nVidia TNT
===================================== Texture Set: 16-bit textures
Mip Map Level: Medium Resolution: 1024x768 or less Notes: For all
nVidia cards, we recommend updating your drivers to the latest
Detonator drivers, currently version 3.53, available from nVidia if
you have any graphical problems in the game. In the control panel
for the display properties, we recommend turning off "enable fog
table emulation" and "adjust Z-buffer depth to rendering depth if
unequal". Also turn off any settings for automatically creating mip
map levels. 5. nVidia TNT2 =====================================
Texture Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: High Resolution: Any
Notes: For all nVidia cards, we rvers, currently version 3.53,
available from nVidia if you have any graphical problems in the
game. In the control panel for the display properties, we recommend
turning off "enable fog table emulation" and "adjust Z-buffer depth
to rendering depth if unequal". Also turn off any settings for
automatically creating mip map levels. 7. ATI Rage Pro
===================================== Texture Set: 16-bit textures
Mip Map Level: Medium or Low Resolution: 800x600 or less Notes:
Some drivers for the ATI Rage Pro will cause a large number of
rendering errors while playing Ascension. We recommend updating to
the latest drivers available from www.atitech.com if you experience
any graphical errors during play. 8. ATI Rage 128
===================================== Texture Set: 16-bit textures
Mip Map Level: High or Medium Resolution: 1024x768 or less 9. S3
Savage 4 ===================================== Texture Set:
Compressed textures Mip Map Level: High Resolution: 1024x768 or
less 10. Riva 128 ===================================== Texture
Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: Medium or Low Resolution:
800x600 or less Notes: The Riva 128 does not support certain
texture formats, mostly used for spell and lighting effects, and
shadows. As a result, these textures may appear slightly more
blocky than on other cards. Warning: Some drivers appear to not
support vertex-iterated alpha. This feature is required by
Ascension. 11. Rendition 2200 =====================================
Texture Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: Medium Resolution:
800x600 or less 12. 3dfx =====================================
Texture Set: 16-bit textures Mip Map Level: Medium Resolution:
800x600 or less ( 1024x768 on Voodoo 3 ) Notes: The 3dFX cards do
not support certain texture formats, mostly used for spell and
lighting effects, and shadows. As a result, these textures may
appear slightly more blocky than on other cards. If you see large
square blocks where you would expect to see shadows or spell
effects, you should set the "Force4444Alpha" entry in your
options.ini file to 1. If you experience graphical problems with
"chromakey" textures (i.e. the interface, trees, windows, etc. ),
you should set the "MultiPassChromakey" entry in your options.ini
file to 0. As a general rule, we recommend running the game in
Glide mode with 8-bit textures on 3dFX cards. 13. Other D3D
Hardware ===================================== Most Direct3D cards
will support 16-bit textures. 8-bit textures are not supported
under Direct3D for Ultima IX:Ascension. If your D3D card supports
DirectX compressed textures, then you should choose the compressed
texture set, as this will give you a noticeable increase in
performance. The mip map level that you should use is determined
mostly by the amount of memory your video card has for textures. A
card with 8 MB of RAM should use the Medium mip map level. A card
with 16 MB or more of RAM can use the High mip map level, although
using the Medium setting will give better performance. Also, if you
are running at a very high resolution, you may want to turn mip
mapping off, since you won't be as affected by texture crawl, and
that will help performance on some cards as well. The resolution
you choose is also based on the amount of memory on your video
card, as well as the speed of the card. The higher the resolution
you choose, the less memory you have available on the card for
textures, and this can adversely affect performance. With most
modern 3D cards, you will not notice much difference in frame rate
between 640x480 and 1024x768 when playing Ultima IX, so you should
experiment with different resolution settings to find the one that
gives you the best appearance and game play. In general, we
recommend updating your drivers to the latest ones available from
your card manufacturer if you have any graphical problems. In many
cases, the latest drivers may also improve performance. If you
continue to have graphic glitches, we recommend that you check the
web site of the manufacturer of the chip on your video card for the
latest reference drivers. Many times these drivers are more up to
date than those available from the card manufacturer. Return to
the Contents
2.5.1 A: First you want to try this tips from the official
website: Quick Help: Running faster with D3D 1. Install the game
with 16-bit textures. The "Compressed for D3D" textures require
less disk space, but run slower. 2. Use the Hardware Setup program
to select Mip-Map Detail Level "Medium"; or, select this option
when you install the game. 3. Also using the Hardware Setup
program, select a 32-bit screen resolution for your D3D card, if
any are available. You can tell a 32- bit screen resolution because
it'll say, for example, "800 x 600 x 32" instead of "800 x 600 x
16". 4. Run the game, and use your in-game Journal to change your
game Options for maximum speed. 5. If your performance is still
extremely slow, try installing different drivers for your video
card. 2.5.2. Q: I have CL TNT card and I see transparent textures
that shouldn't be transparent. A: Go to the Creative Labs -Blaster
TNT website. Get the new Bios Software update, and the latest TNT
Drivers. 2.5.3. Q: When will there be a D3d patch? A: Check out the
Patch Section at the beginning of this Document 2.5.4. Q: I get an
invalid pixel format with my TNT card A: Apply Patch 1.05f! Be sure
to check out the Patch Problems Section
if you still get the error! A: (only unpatched retail version!) Use
the 2.08 drivers. A user reported that this is not an option for
GeForce users. Also this does NOT solve the problem if you still
have DX7. Maybe the 2.08 drivers work with DX6.X. Check the
Installation Section for tips to remove DX7. Origin is working on
this issue. A:(only unpatched retail version!) The following
possible solution was posted by a user on the Q&A Board:
Problem: Unknown Pixel Format or Ultima 9 Wont run. Note: If your
computer illiterate, doing the following can "wreck" things. If you
know what your doing, its easy. Step 1: Uninstall DirextX and all
your video card drivers in the Control Panel under Add/Remove
Software. Step 2: Go into your c:/windows/system/ directory and
scroll down to the files starting with NV. Delete all the NV...
files that you find, will be about 8 in all. This is the most
important steps. These files are why it wont run. Step 3: Restart
your system and then install DirextX7.0 from the U9 CD. Just go
into the DirectX7 folder of your U9 Install CD and click on
/directx7/DXsetup.exe file. Now reinstall DirextX7.0. and then
reboot. Step 4: Download the 2.08 Detonator drivers for your TNT1/2
card and reinstall them on your system. Cant find 2.08 files? Type
this into your Browser URL area: These are the Hercules Dynamite
TNT drivers but will work with any TNT card. I believe they will
work with a TNT2 as well but I have not tried them on my other
system with a Xentor TNT2 so Im not sure. Step 5: Go into
Properties on your Desktop and reset all your previous settings for
your display adapter. If you do all these steps correctly, U9
should work. 2.5.5. Q: Hello, I have a problem with Ultima IX. I
have a STB Velocity 4400 16 MB card. No matter what settings I use,
there are no walls, floors, ect. Everything just breaks up, I can't
see where I'm going in the game. The opening cinematic ran fine.
What should I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated. A: Sounds
like a driver, perhaps Direct X issue. Anyone experiencing the
same? 2.5.6. Q: Where to find current drivers for my D3dcard. A:
Check the hardware links in section 8 2.5.7. TNT: Try playing
around with your AGP Apertures Size setting in BIOS. Some users
reported much less swapping for their TNT systems after setting it
to a very large (256) value setting. Justin Swanhart send me this:
AGP works by copying memory between the CPU and system memory
directly and over the AGP bus. This is very similar to bus
mastering, except AGP can actually bypass the memory management and
write directly to the CPU (this is called a fast write, and isn't
implemented on older AGP cards, the new GeForce cards fully support
it though, and with AGP 4X make it one very fast video card). The
GART on the AGP card maps a "virtual memory area" (the aperture)
inside of physical memory and fills it up with AGP information. It
is called an aperture because it is a virtual "view" into system
memory. While the AGP aperture is one virtual contiguous memory
region, real system memory may be allocated and de-allocated in
chunks. The fragments are transparent to the AGP video card.
Typically an AGP aperture size of 32MB or 64MB is satisfactory if
the system has 64MB OR MORE or ram. In my experience setting the
aperture > 64MB under any circumstance results in decreased
overall system performance, sometimes significant slowdown. If the
system has lesss than 32MB, the setting should be 32MB of memory or
less, depending on the amount of video memory the AGP card has
onboard. Because of the way most AGP cards handle textures, it is a
good idea to have twice as much AGP aperture as your video card has
ram. If your video card has 32MB of memory, your system should have
at least 64 and the aperture should be set to 64 (under most
circumstances). Depending on the type of card you have and what
motherboard you are using, 32MB aperture may perform better for
you. All in all it is a matter of experimentation to see what
aperture settings work best with your video card. TNT2 : Usually 32
or 64 ATI Rage 128GL: Usually 32 or 64 GeForce: unknown, but
probably the same as the TNT2 S3 chips: unknown It makes *no*
difference what youset the AGP apiture size to with these cards,
they do not support AGP textureing wich is what the aperture size
controls 2.5.8. Q: My D3d Card does not run with 8 bit textures. A:
--> 2.6.1 2.5.9. Q: Setup detect a wrong video card. A: Make
sure that you have a video Card listed as compatible with the game.
Some users reported that setup detected a board, which they had
previously in their system but had removed thereafter, instead of
their actual video board. Somehow the deinstallation of the
previous card was not clean. Ensure in the system manager that
there is no trace left of your old video card. Reinstalling windows
is also an option if you don't get rid of the thing. 2.5.10
SPEED:If you are using a Diamond Viper 550 with diamond drivers,
try this for more performance Go to Display
Properties|Settings|Advanced|Diamond and disable "Software
Anti-aliasing". This results in a slight quality loss, due to
aliasing, and a slight performance increase, due to lower polygon
render time. It will, obviously, not dramatically affect hard drive
banging. 2.5.11. SPEED: If using TNT2 (1?) and 2.08 drivers: in the
2.08 detonator driver d3d properties, set the mip type to 8-tap
anistrophic, and best quality. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I
also set the hardware anti-aliasing to the max. And for these, u9
suddenly running the speed in should, for me, in my machine. Click
on Riva TNT 2 Click on Additional Properties Click on Direct 3D
Settings Click on Auto-mipmap method Return to the Contents 2.6 Visual Quirks,
Graphical glitches
2.6.1 Q: Some textures in the game seem unfiltered. Also: My
D3d Card does not run 8 bit textures (fixed with 1.18f!) A:
(CapnBill) You're right! The "bilinear filtering" effect that
smooths textures out as you get closer to them had to be turned off
for textures that had "holes" in them, for non-8-bit draw modes.
I'll attempt to explain: Our art database was mainly developed and
established in the days before D3D was accepted; we primarily had
Glide to work from, and our effects & art were based on that
(ie 3 years ago). All our art which had "holes" (ie windows, and
irregular shapes like tree leaves) used a technique called
"chromakey" to set certain pixels to transparent. Over the next
year and a half, a large staff of artists cranks out huge volumes
of art; and D3D advances to the point where we can start adding
support for it. Ah, now it's time to add D3D support. Lo &
behold, D3D doesn't support chromakey. Also, most D3D drivers don't
support 8-bit. So, we ended up requiring D3D to run in 16-bit, and
for 16-bit textures to not use chromakey any more; we converted
them to use an alpha bit to set those pixels to transparent. Enter
bilinear filtering: Bilinear filtering, which smooths the colors in
textures, also would smooth the alpha for the shut-off pixels,
causing horrible artifacts along the edges of tree leaves &
windows. To circumvent this, we enabled an "alpha threshold" check,
that would set a pixel to transparent only if its alpha were below
a certain value; this got rid of the edge artifacts, but the alpha
threshold ruined our "fuzzy clipping plane" effect for any textures
that used the alpha threshold, where vertex alpha was used to blur
the edge of the ever-offensive clipping plane. The fuzzy clipping
plane required a full range of alpha to look right; the edge
artifacts required that we eliminate the full range of alpha. The
result was that all trees ended up looking horrible when they were
at the edge of the clipping plane. So, we ended up shutting off
bilinear filtering for 16-bit modes for textures that require
transparent pixels. Grrr. This is just one aspect of our D3D
development that ended up killing our schedule...there were lots of
others, believe me. UPDATE: With the full move to DX7 this problem
has been resolved 2.6.2 Q: When running on higher resolutions the
interface (toolbelt, etc) seems very pixelated. A: Thats by design,
nothing you can do about. 2.6.3. Q: I have grey boxes around my
cursor and the interface *> 2.4.6 Return to the Contents 2.7
CD-ROM Problems
NOTE: As U9 makes use of the SafeDisk copyprotection scheme you
may encounter some problems. SystemShock and C&C:TS used this
kind of protection too and users complaint about several problems
related to this. SafeDisk uses an encrypted EXE on the CD and a
seperate EXE is used each time you call the original exe to decrypt
its contents into RAM (or something the like). These problems are
the price we all pay for piracy. On the other hand I like to add
that using SafeDisk is kind of pathetic since it has been broken
long ago (perhaps EA payed a lot of money for this). 2.7.1 Q: UA
does not like to run from my 2nd CDROM/CD-Burner. A: Most likely it
is the SafeDisk Protection. Try running it from your FIRST CD-ROM.
Also you might like to try removing or disabling your second cdrom.
2.7.2. Q: After starting U9.exe nothing happens for 20 seconds.
Then the game starts A: Possibly SafeDisk related. Nothing you can
do. 2.7.3. Q: Setup does not recognize my CD-ROM correctly. It
tells me that I have a 5x CD-ROM but I sure have NO 5x CD-ROM A:
Some people experienced this (and a crash to desktop on
system-start thereafter). Probably driver issue. Try removing
WinDVD or PowerDVD from your system if installed. After that the
game should work fine. you have no DVD-Software on the system or
the above trick does not give you any results, try this one. Go to
Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment ->
Windows Media Player Click View (at the top)/ Click Options /Click
Format (Top Right) /Uncheck all the boxes (This incapacitates Media
Player, you can re-enable those later) / Click Apply Click Ok Run
U9 Enjoy Return to the Contents
3. MOVIE ISSUES
3.1. SUGGESTION: If your movies are not playing (i.e. Intro,
cut-scenes) try removing your DVD software. Also try installing the
movies on your hard drive and changing the "MoviePath" setting in
options.ini to point to the directory on the hard drive instead of
the cd/dvd drive? 3.2. SUGGESTION: if your movies aren't playing
and you didn't put them on your HD then try changing CDs. The
movies are on the second CD and they wont play (or give an error!)
if you have disk 1 still in there. 3.3. Q: I get sound but a black
screen when the movies play A: Make sure you installed Quicktime
during the install process 3.4. A: An other user reported this:
Apparently, U9 doesn't like dual CD-ROMs. I installed it off the E
drive, and the game runs fine off it, but it still put the D drive
as my path for the movie files - hence, no movies. Simply hacking
the .ini to the right path fixed it no problem. 3.5. SUGGESTION:
Put the movies to the harddisk (options.ini). This should lead to a
general performance plus. Return to the Contents 4.
SOUND ISSUES
Note: It has been confirmed by the DevTeam, that your sound
performance may be somewhat linked to the overall performance of
the game. If you get sloppy framerates you will most likely get
choppy sound 4.1. Q: The sound stutters 4.1.1. A: Try turning down
the acceleration on the sound and possibly lowering the amount of
Voices in the options.ini 4.1.2. A: If you are experiencing audio
stuttering, try upping your Stream Duration to 3000 under your
options.ini 4.1.3. A: Triple check under your options.ini that your
Speaker Configuration is not 5= Surround. For some reason this
slows down the game. Set it to stereo. Or if using headphones to
the appropriate config. 4.1.4. A: Try turning off EAX support
(Suggested by CapnBill, Lead Developer) 4.1.5. A: Reduce the CD-Rom
supplemental cache-size: 1)Alt+2click "my computer" 2)click
"performance" tab (top right) then click "Filesystem" 3)Click the
CD-ROM tab, then click in the "Optimize access pattern for:" box,
choose QUAD-SPEED OR HIGHER. 4)Move the "Supplemental cache size:"
slider to "small" then click apply. 4.2. Q: I am getting an
annoying pause before the music starts up, anyway to get rid of
this? 4.2.1.A: This problem is caused by the Audio Cache, CD
spinning-up and loading the music off your HD. Try doing a full
install or turn off music altogether. 4.3. Soundblaster-Live: After
trying EVERYTHING, and editing every possible line in the
options.ini file, I finally found the one. I did two things,
although it is the second that fixed the problem (the first doesn't
hurt, and is a good idea, anyway): Both are under the {sound}
section: 1) Change the UseNotify from UseNotify=0 to UseNotify=1 2)
The second is the most ironic. It involves chnages the "rolloff"
value for the 2D and 3D sounds (yeah, the one that the comment line
says is NOT a good idea to touch to tweak the sound
performance...). Anyway, the default is Rolloff=1.0. Instead,
change the value to read "Rolloff=0.0". And then voila! Sounds and
EAX galore! 4.4. With EAX, one user reported that with OSR2 he
could not get the SFX to unless he set the the USENOTIFY and
ROLLOFF setting in options.ini. Additionally the SFX worked fine
every time when the game was loaded in His regular 98 boot. So he
installed a bare-bones 98 and installed the Drivers and SFX worked
fine again with both DX6 and DX7. 4.5. Q: Does this Rule Britannia
Soundtrack play forever? A: Its a bug, confirmed by OSI and
possibly taken care of in the patch. --> 7.3.8 4.6.
SoundBlaster-Life owners: You can free up system RAM by going to
AudioHQ|SoundFont|Configure Bank, selecting any SoundFonts in the
Synth bank, and selecting clear. If you are using one of the
included SoundFonts, this will free up anywhere from 2 to 8 megs of
system RAM. Of course, it will also make your MIDI sound
terrible... remember to set the SoundFonts back where they were
before playing MIDI games again. 4.7 Q: Whistling gone After
installing #1.18f the avatar does not whistle anymore when
wandering around A: killed on popular demand in 1.18f Return to
the Contents 5. Options.ini / Keymap file
If you have any information on this file you think important or
interesting, please mail them This is a example system posted by
CapnBill on the official Boards: specs: PII 400 128 MB RAM Windows
2000 Professional, build 2114 Voodoo 2 with WinNT 4 Glide 2.x Awe64
sound card SCSI hard drives OPTIONS settings that matter: Clipping
planes: 2000 middle, 4000 far Lighting SkipFrames: 4 TreeShadows: 1
WaterShading: 1 ASoundCount: 5 NASoundCount: 3 8-Bit textures
800x600 resolution Frame Rate in Britain: 12-15 On earth: 25 This
options.ini was posted by Kelendral on the official boards. I've
added some comments from CapnBill. Origin will soon post a guide on
how to edit this file for performance tuning.
;************************************************************************
; ; Ultima IX - Option settings file ; ; This file should be
modified only by experinced users ; Incorrect entries can cause
game errors and failures ; Please be careful when adjusting these
settings! ; ; Please use semi-colons to mark ; comment lines as is
done with these lines ;
;*************************************************************************
[Interface] ; Current keymap Current_Keymap=default.kmp ; Spells
are cast as soon as key is hit QuickSpellTargeting=1 [Performance]
; Camera focal length CameraZoom=600 ; Camera distance from Avatar
CameraDistance=400 ; ; Recommended Performance Settings: ; CPU
Speed MiddleClip FarClip WarnPolyLimit ; P200/233: 2500 2500 2000 ;
P266: 2500 3500 2500 ; P330/333: 2750 4000 3000 ; P400+: 3000 5000
3500 ; ; Clipping planes FarClippingPlaneDistance=5500
MiddleClippingPlaneDistance=3300 ; Default clipping plane setting
for underground maps DungeonClippingPlaneDistance=2200 ; Screen
radius of objects culled, and distance culling ;starts
MaxObjCullSize=10 CullStartDist=1000 ; Enables 16-bit texture maps
Use16BitTextures=1 ; Use S3 Savage4 Texture Compression or not
UseCompressedTextures=0 ; The range through which windows can be
seen through MaximumPortalRange=770 ; Are particle-system flames
allowed? PoofFlames=1 ; Poof optimization level: ; 0=no
optimization ; 1=non-critical particles calculated but not
transformed ; 2=non-critical particles are neither calculated nor
;transformed ; 3=non-critical particles cease incepting children
PoofOptimize=0 ; High Resolution Sky Textures HiResSky=1 ; Default
is 0 ; Unknown - Assuming max processor percentage ;
MaxProcessPercent=?; CapnBill;We have a debug screen (not in the
final ; game) that shows %CPU usage of various Processes in the our
; engine--this value affects that debug screen [Sound] ; Sound
Device configured for Use ; Default is the Primary DirectSound
Device Found DeviceName=DirectSound (SB Live! Wave Out [B400]) ;
Turn Sound On/Off SoundEnabled=1 ; SpeakerConfig has the following
values: ; 1 - Headphones ; 2 - Mono ; 3 - Quad ; 4 - Stereo ; 5 -
Surround ; ; Note from windforce: Mode 5 is known to eat up
performance. SpeakerConfig=4 ; SpeakerGeometry specifies the angle
; between speakers if you choose Stereo SpeakerGeometry=20 ; The
number of simultaneous non-associated (2D, or "faked" 3D) sounds ;
allowed at one time NASoundCount=4 ; The number of simultaneous
associated (3D) sounds allowed at one time ASoundCount=9 ; Enables
virtual 3D sound effexts Enable3D=1 ; The fall off rate with
distance of non-associated sounds ; (this is the number of world
units at which the sound will ; be muted - linearly falls off from
0 to this number) Falloff2D=2200 ; The amount to quiet the Avatar's
own sounds so they aren't too loud ; (in %. 0=full volume, 100 =
mute) AvatarOffset=8 ; The # of milliseconds to load from CD per
frame StreamDuration=5000 ; Turn on and off EAX environmenta audio
extensions (Echo's etc) ; Note from windforce: Try to disable if
you experience random crashes EnableAcoustics=1 ; Master volume,
0=silent, 100 = max (in percent) MasterVolume=100 ; Volume of
music, 0=silent, 100 = max (in percent) MusicVolume=60 ; Volume of
speech, 0=silent, 100 = max (in percent) SpeechVolume=85 ; How many
frames must pass before updating 3D values (position, ;
orientation, velocity, etc.) SkipFrames=0 ; Use the DirectSound
"notification interface" to let the sound ; system know when to
update (rather than polling the play position). ; Default is '0'
(This will theoretically be fixed/work better ; in DirectX 8)
UseNotify=1 ; For debugging, use a streamer that reads the *entire*
; sample at once. DebugStreamers=0 ; To get around a bug in Win98
Gold (our famous "crackle" problem), ; offset the "bad" frequency
by this amount. It also doubles as ; the "range around the bad
frequency" that we wish to monitor. ; (Ie, using 50 here would make
any frequency from 22000kHz to ; 22050kHz be 22000kHz, and any
frequency from 22050kHz to ; 22100kHz be 22100kHz.) CrackleOffset=1
; This value overrides the "minimum perceptible attenuation"
distance ; for 3D sounds. At distances less than this number
(meters), the ; sounds will get no louder. (Increasing this number
in effect makes ; all 3D sounds appear louder at the same distance
from you.) The ; dialog that adjusts this value for individual
templates ranges from ; 1.0 to 25.0, so I'd recommended playing in
the 1.0 to 5.0 area. ; Default 1.0MinDist=1.0 ; This value
specifies how "fast" 3D sounds "roll off" to silence. ; The default
(recommended) is 1.0. Less than that means roll off ; "slower",
greater means "faster". Don't go less than 0.0, and ; I'd advise
not to go greater than 1.0, as our balance issue is ; already
apparent enough (greater than 1.0 will amplify the issue). ;
However, the *A/V guys* (read as "not designers, programmers, or ;
anybody else") should tweak this value in attempt to better ;
balance 2D and 3D audio. ; Default 1.0 Rolloff=0.9 [Conversation]
EnableAudio=1 ; Start of game settings EnableText=0 ; 0=Audio off,
1 = On EnableConvoReplies=1 ; 0=Avatar doesn't echo chosen
responses, 1 = does [Lighting] ; Allows flickering lightsources
Flicker=1 ; Max distance flickering lights effect FlickerRange=500
; Max # of lights used at any time (sorted by distance from camera)
MaxCount=100 ; How many frames between each lighting system update
SkipFrames=0 AvatarSkipFrames=0 ; How far a light moves before it
relights its area MoveDelta=5 ; 3=Highest, 2 = Regular, 1 = Low, 0
= Poor LightQuality=3 ; Allows water depth to affect lighting
WaterShading=1 ; Allows trees to cast shadows TreeShadows=1 [Demo]
; testingMoongates=1 ; CapnBill: unknown, lost in the mist of time
[Game] ; 0=Run, 1 = Walk DefaultToWalking=1 ; 2400 clock
StartTimeOfDay=600 ; Lag before tool tips shows up
TooltipDelayTime=0 ; Durration of tool tip
TooltipDisplayTime=999999999 ; 2=D3D, 3 = Glide Game Rasterizer=2
PromptForDevice=0 GameScreenWidth=1280 GameScreenHeight=1024
GameScreenDepth=32 GameMipMapLevel=1 DDGUID=0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
D3DGUID=2229681632,18090,4559,129,111,0,0,192,32,21,110 ; Game
starts with 2=None, 1 = Minimum, 0 = Full Show GUI=0 ; Where to
find the Flics MoviePath=c:\gamez\ultima ix\Movies ; Are LOD levels
set by distance from the Avatar, or camera? LODsFromAvatar=0 ; Is Z
ignored for LODs? IgnoreZforLODs=1 ;?? AttackHoldDuration=5000
Start=0 SaveStatePath=0 ; Language Language=En ; Speed Factor
SpeedFactor=5 ; Set to disable Windows Key, Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Esc
DisableWinKey=0 ; Set to 1 to force alpha textures to draw as 4444
(for 3dfx in D3D) Force4444Alpha=0 [System] ; 1=allow exception
handling (traps errors), 0 = just crash TrapErrors=0 ; 1=After
trapping an exception, show the crash; 0 = just say "game over"
ShowErrors=0 ; AutomaticMonoScreen=??? ; CapnBill: useful only if
you have an MDA (Mono Display Adapter). ; Shows a frame-rate
counter if set to 1. ; MoveSysMonoType=??? ; Capn Bill: Another
debug screen option ; drawCollisionCylinders=??? ; CapnBill: if
enabled, will draw the "collision ; cylinder" for every creature in
the world. We use it for ; debugging. Slows the game way, way down.
; WarnSpeedLimit=??? ; Capn Bill: if on, stop signs appear on the
screen in ; areas that are too slow. We used this for tuning the
speed ; of various areas of the game. ; WarnPolyLimit=??? ;
CapnBill: WarnPolyLimit: stop sign for too many polys ;
WarnMeshNumLimit=??? ; CapnBill: WarnMeshNumLimit: stop sign for
too many meshes ; WarnMeshRAMLimit=??? ; CapnBill: stop sign for
too much RAM used by meshes ; TerrainGridColor=??? ; CapnBill:
unknownors may result from incorrect entries ; Each command can
have only one key combination to activate it ; Some commands are
hard coded and are not settable ; through this file. They are: ;
RightClick = Move (with modifiers of shift, ctrl & alt) ;
LeftClick = Use or Attack (with modifiers of ctrl and alt) ; ; The
following key combinations identifiers are reserved ; for the
game's internal/predefined uses: ; ESC, ESCAPE, esc, escape ; F1 -
F12, f1 - f12 ; ; be careful when commenting out lines. If the
semicolon ';' ; is followed by an '=' Ultima 9 will take that as an
assignment ; of the ';' key ; ; Do not use Shift and Alt to modify
non-mouse momentary switched commands! ; For example - Shield
Block, as when releasing keypresses they will ; not release
simultaniously, and thus the up event can be missed! ;
;***************************************************************************
[MOVEMENT COMMANDS] left = sidestep_left keypadleft = sidestep_left
right = sidestep_right keypadright = sidestep_right up = forward
keypadup = forward keypaddown = backward space = jump c = climb
capslock = toggle_movement_speed ; Keyboard shortcuts to movement
Up = forward Down = backward Left = sidestep_left Right =
sidestep_right Delete = mouse_left End = mouse_right PageUp =
mouse_up PageDown = mouse_down ; Numeric Keypad movement keys
(Audball's preferences) ; only in 1.18f ; Double-defines for
NumLock being on or off. KeyPad+ = mouse_button2 KeyPad0 =
mouse_button1 KeyPadInsert = mouse_button1 KeyPad4 = mouse_left
KeyPadLeft = mouse_left KeyPad6 = mouse_right KeyPadRight =
mouse_right KeyPad8 = mouse_up KeyPadUp = mouse_up KeyPad2 =
mouse_down KeyPadDown = mouse_down KeyPad7 = sidestep_left
KeyPadHome = sidestep_left KeyPad9 = sidestep_right KeyPadPageUp =
sidestep_right [INTERACTION COMMANDS] ` = activate_hand ; Goes in
and out of Hand/Move-item mode (*) q = activate_hand ; Goes in and
out of Hand/Move-item mode (*) b = activate_inventory ; Goes in and
out of Hand/Move-item mode (*) shift+` = toggle_mainUI ; Cycles
through Max/Min/None interface display shift+q = toggle_mainUI ;
Cycles through Max/Min/None interface display shift+e =
toggle_equipmentUI ; Turns armor/weapon interface on/off x =
examine pause = pause j = open_journal s = open_spellbook ctrl+m =
open_world_map ctrl+l = journal_load ctrl+s = journal_save ctrl+o =
journal_options ctrl+j = journal_diary_last_page ctrl+k =
journal_diary_first_page ctrl+b = journal_bestiary ctrl+t =
journal_history ctrl+z = journal_stats 0 = spellbook_circle_0 1 =
spellbook_circle_1 2 = spellbook_circle_2 3 = spellbook_circle_3 4
= spellbook_circle_4 5 = spellbook_circle_5 6 = spellbook_circle_6
7 = spellbook_circle_7 8 = spellbook_circle_8 9 = spellbook_rituals
ctrl+r = spellbook_reagents ctrl+g = spellbook_glossary pageup =
book_next_page pagedown = book_previous_page ctrl+x = exit_game ;
(*) Hand mode is temporarily activated when an item is dragged ;
[COMBAT COMMANDS] tab = enter_combat ; Goes in/out of combat z =
defend t = target_lock ; on/off n = get_target_lock ; Acquire next
target/cycle through targets ; Note: while the following command is
bound to the "a" key by Default ; It is currently NOT implemented
in the program. ; WORKAROUND: to abort targetting toggle combat
mode out then back on a = abort_targerting ; [GENERAL OPTIONS
COMMANDS] ; these commands are implemented to fix music loops and
character ;stuck while casting spells bugs, only in 1.18f
ctrl+alt+m = flush_music ctrl+alt+s = flush_spells ; Advanced user
options and shortcuts ctrl+i = invert_mouse ; ; =
exit_to_new_camera ; ; = exit_to_old_camera ; ; = pitchlocked
ctrl+p = take_screenshot ; ; = toggle_screen_center m =
momentary_first_person shift+ctrl+m = mouseSensitivity_decrease ;
Note: while the following command is bound to the "shift+alt+m"
keys ; by Default It is currently NOT implemented in the program. ;
WORKAROUND: None at the moment shift+alt+m =
mouseSensitivity_increase ; [CAMERA CONTROL COMMANDS] ; ; =
spin_camera ctrl+home = camera_in ctrl+end = camera_out ; ; =
camera_way_in ctrl+delete = camera_way_out ctrl+pageup = zoom_in
ctrl+pagedown = zoom_out ctrl+insert = zoom_reset k = camera_mode ;
The following commands only work when in hand mode ctrl+left =
yaw_left ctrl+right = yaw_right ctrl+up = pitch_up ctrl+down =
pitch_down ; [ENGINE TUNING COMMANDS] CTRL+leftbracket =
clipping_plane_in CTRL+rightbracket = clipping_plane_out CTRL+\ =
clipping_plane_reset CTRL+shift+leftbracket = middle_plane_in
CTRL+shift+rightbracket = middle_plane_out CTRL+shift+\ =
middle_plane_reset ; [CHEAT COMMANDS] ; removed by windforce (check
section 10 if you insist in cheating) [CODE TEST COMMANDS] ;
removed by windforce (check section 10 if you insist in cheating)
[DEVELOPMENT CONTROL COMMANDS] ; Return to the Contents 6. Interface/Controlling/UI issues (Mouse/Keyboard
function)
6.1. Q: My armor/weapon bar suddenly disappeared A: Try picking
something up 6.2. Q: I can not scroll left or right and up or down
while in hand mode. A: Depending on where the Avatar is standing
the scroll feature will not be made available at times. Approach
the object from a different angle then enter hand mode again. 6.3.
Q: I am in the water next to a wall when I get stuck inside the
wall after casting a spell. A: You will be able to free yourself
from the wall by pressing the Escape key. 6.4. Q: Where is the in
game options menu? A: At first, there are no options due to the
fact that the options for The game are located in the Journal that
is located in the downstairs Living room. Once this Journal is
acquired the -in game options- will Become available by clicking on
the Journal now located in the bottom right next to your tool belt.
6.5. Q: How can I skip past repeated audio of NPCs? A: Hit ENTER or
click on the subtitle text. 6.6. Q: How to enable/disable the
windows keys (alt-tab, etc) A: Hack Options.ini as follows (Section
[Game]) DisableWinKey=0 This is not possible anymore with patch
1.05f 6.7. Q: Can I get item descriptions A: There sure is. First,
go into object/hand mode (press the '~' key). Then, move the cursor
over the item/icon you wish to examine, and hold down the 'X' key.
If the designers gave the item a description, it should show up
(from CapnBill) 6.8. Q: My character has lost the ability to move.
A: Possibly an issue with collission detection. Try Saving and
reloading ( but I would use a new savegame-slot...). Also try
pressing ESC 6.9. backpack bug: Note: A lot of backpack related
bugs (including this) are fixed in the patches, so upgrade.
(upatched retail version) Somehow multiple items are incorrectly.
sharing the same inventory slot, and this causes a crash when the
backpack is full. The patch rectifies this removing these "stacked"
items and attempting to place them elsewhere in your inventory
(belt, bag, etc.), or on the ground if no suitable place occurs.
Until the patch is available, you could try loading your most
current non-crashing savegame and double-checking all your
inventory slots. If you find items that are overlapping, remove
both/all of them and put them in the world. Then close all your
invetory gumps (backpack, bags, etc.) and save. Then attempt to
re-place the items back into your inventory and save again. This
might/should solve the crash. 6.10. mouse inversion Q: Can I invert
the mouse A: crtl+i will do Return to the Contents 7.
GENERAL GAMEPLAY ISSUES
*Warning this area contains VERY MINOR SPOILERS 7.1. Plot related issues Note on patches
(from patch.txt) There are a few items that will only be reflected
if you install the patch before you reach a certain point in the
game.
7.1.1. Q: I'm stuck somewhere in the game and... A: If really
desperate, try Jeff Allens excellent Walkthrough at
http://rpgplanet.com/ultima9 (the old URL was taken offline due to
high traffic) or maybe you want to consider using one of the cheats
(Argh) -> Section 10 Read from end to beginning to translate
(No, its not german :-)) Plot related bugs: //////////////////////
reversed to hide spoiler ///////////////////////////// 7.1.2 Q:
kcorkcalb fo seceip eerht ym ezingocer tnow cisnirT ni htimskcalb
ehT. (Trinsic) A: Bug confirmed by Capn Bill and adressed in the
next patch 7.1.3 Q: dellacer eb tonnac dna esuoh a otno tuo bmuj ro
ffo llaf uoy fi kcuts steg taob gniylf eht(Moonglow) A: Reported,
You can try the Fly cheat. -> Section 10 7.1.4 Q: deerf eb
tonnac ociN dna dellik eb tonnac eh snaem sihT .sraeppasid evoC fo
nezitic tsrif ehT (Cove) A: Reported, no answer yet 7.1.5.Q: nam
netaeb eht ot klat ot gniyrt nehw potksed eht ot sehsarc emag eht
noitcua lrigevals eht ta nam eht gnitaeb etarip eht gnillik retfA
(Bucs Den), reproduced 5 times in a row by DarkSharp) A: Nothing
yet. ///////////////////////////END POSSIBLE
SPOILER//////////////////////////////// 7.1.6 A: telescope bug in
Britannia: This bug is caused in LB's castle, up on the. "patio"?
where the telescope is. If you happen to use the telescope at night
to look at the moons, you will introduce the Hail Britannia bug.
The only current way to avoid this bug is to back up to a previous
savegame (before the telescope) and either NOT use the telescope,
or only use the telescope during the day. This will be fixed in the
(second?) patch. The bug itself is fixed, and there will be a new
keyboard command you can use to "fix" Hail Britannia if you saved
after the bug occurred, but before you installed the patch.
UPDATE: There are new keyboard commands to flush the music queue
and
end the music loophole since patch #107f. It is crtl-shift-m 7.1.7.
BUG: Known as "Alphawolf Bug" Upon entering New Magincia, and
meeting it's only inhabitant, the Avatar will be given a quest with
two tasks. Apparantly, if one completes only one of the tasks,
leaves for another quest, then comes back to complete the other
task, a major plot item will be unattainable due to a bug. The
moral of the story - finish both of the tasks of the only person on
New Magincia first thing unpon entering the island, then return to
the quest-giver for the quest item, no matter what, then continue
on to other things.
UPDATE: This has been fixed in patch 1.07f. You may need to revert
to a
savegame before talking to Kathrina to have the patch take effect.
7.1.8 BUG: "Elevator Bug" (Hyloth) Some people seem to have
problems with some elevator in Hyloth. Righteous DragonThe posted
on the official boards that saving and reloading thereafter may fix
this problem.
UPDATE: Many elevator related problems are fixed in patch 1.18f
7.1.9. BUG: "Gate Bug" in (Hyloth) (POSSIBLE PLOTSTOPPER) I am
unable to continue playing. I am currently in Hythloth, and ////
reversed to hide spoiler /// sehsarc emag eht etag tsal eht guorht
klaw ot yrt I sa ,revewoH .setag ruof lla desiar evah. ////end
reversed part/// A: This bug was experienced by several users. Try
Latest patch 7.1.10. BUG: "Dialog Bug" (Hyloth) //// reversed to
hide spoiler /// ...yek eht gnitteg dna nevaR eucser retfA ////end
reversed part/// ... I loose my mouse functions in the dialog thus
and cannot answer the questions A: Try the keyboard (Key 1 for the
first answer, 2 for the second,...) and save thereafter. 7.1.11.
BUG: "compassion shrine" (POSSIBLE PLOTSTOPPER) One user reported
this: After restoring the Shrine of Compassion Raven does not
recognize that I've done it. She's still standing by despise and
asking me if I am ready to prove myself. A: Thanks to all of you
who commented on this:
The answer is as follows:
1. Take the latest patch and use a savegame before cleansing the
shrine 2. Make sure you have cleansed the shrine (that nice
animation was played)
3. you have taken the rune and the sigil 4. Make sure you have the
mantra of compassion :-) Its told by sarah, but due to a bug
(7.1.13), she sometimes keeps silent about it
7.1.12 "Compassion shrine 2" There are several people who reported
to be unable to use the shrine of compassion A: Make sure that it
IS the shrine of compassion (there is a circle of stones at the
lighthouse which IS NOT the shrine of compassion ;-) A: To use the
shrine, right click and enter the appropriate mantra. 7.1.13
"BUG:Mantra of compassion" Several people reported that the mantra
of compassion has been not told to them by Sarah in britain. A:
Don't know if patched, but, if this helps, try the mantra from U6
:-)
trying every mantra in the book of mantras will eventually help too
:-)) 7.1.14 "BUG: EggQuest with Vassagralem" Talking to Vasagralem
in Yew before you have the egg will break your quest. You will have
to reload before hand. Or talking to him in his treehouse, and
jumping off the tree without using the lift, before you go to the
courthouse. Will break the lift. A: Dont talk to him :-). Anyone
knowing if latest pach fixes this? 7.1.15 "BUG: Shamino
plotstopper" Shamino refuses to speak to me through the various
statues and he refuses to speak at all after Malchir's ghost
disappears. This effectively prevents you from entering the Isle of
the Avatar, and you have to cheat or cast Teleport to get in. A:
anyone knowing how to prevent this? any fixes? Does #118f help?
7.1.16 "DEMON BUG" A bug introduced by patch #107f. Any further
infos? 7.1.17 "VALORIA BUGS" I had several crashes and savegame
corruptions when confronted withe the gargoyle queen. Introduced by
patch #107f. Any further infos? 7.1.18 "Silver Serpent Bug" Q: Some
people (including me) had problems with deactivating the force-
field on the silver serpent with the key (it didnt work but
disappeared) A: Restore and try again. Sometimes the key fails.
Approach from different directions. Try jumping too. Remember, the
pirate has the key. Return to the Contents
7.2. Gameplay crashes and quirks
7.2.1. Q: I crash every time I open a book or my Journal A:
Save game may be corrupted. Go back to an earlier saved game.
7.2.2. Q: When I try to use the "game" cd to play the game, the
game would crash at certain places in the game. (such as when I
enter the moongate, 1st meet Raven. . .etc) However, thegame plays
fine with the install disk. A: No answer yet. 7.2.3. Q: If I play
the game for (X) hours straight, the game gets slower and slower.
A: Apparently this is a memory leak due to Win 95/98 and Win2k
Recommend rebooting your Ultima and if that does not work, reboot
your PC. UPDATE: Several memory leaks have been fixed in 1.18f
7.2.4. Q: When I enter the Moongate with my sword drawn the game
crashes A: DO NOT enter the Moongate with your weapon drawn 7.2.5.
Q: Sometimes when I try to drag an item the game will crash A:
CapnBill reported some bugs regarding this issue are fixed with the
patch 7.2.6. Q: When I start the game it immediately crashes to the
desktop A: If you're crashing when you're first trying to run the
game, the culprit may be the movie that's trying to play. Make sure
Media Player runs on your system and can play MPG movies. We
haven't experienced that here, but enough of you have having this
problem for me to seriously suspect something about DirectX. We use
the DirectMedia component of DirectX to play our movies, which are
just MPGs. You can turn off movies if you want, by setting
MoviePath in your OPTIONS.INI file to NONE, or to a path that
doesn't exist. Also check Section 2.7 CDROM issues 7.2.7. Q: The
game crashes quite often on my system. A: Hints on
crash-prone-ness: try updating sound drivers. Try updating video
drivers (except the TNT). 7.2.8. Q: After starting the game the
last thing I see is the spinning 3dfx logo. It then crashed to
desktop. Non-3dfx Users may experience a immediate crash to desktop
A: Probably related to -->2.7.3, *> 2.5.9. Remember also that
on the first start the game tries to play a video. So be sure to
check out the movie issues also 7.2.9. Q: Crash after jumping in
water. If I press jump 2 times a row while standing in water the
game crashes (retail version) A: Install the latest patch 7.2.10.Q:
Lifts problem In the retail version, many lifts in the game
(hythloth, moonglow, yew) were unreliable and sometimes failed to
move. A: Install the latest patch. The "fly cheat" may also help,
but can introduce new problems Return to the Contents 7.3.
Gameplay issues (Bugs)
7.3.1. Q: Do the NPC have schedules as promised? A: Apparently
most of the NPCs DO NOT have schedules or have very limited
schedules contrary to what was promised by Richard Garriot and OSI.
7.3.2. Q: I didn't see the movie that came with the demo after I
enter the Moongate, instead it jumped straight to stonegate. A: See
the MOVIE ISSUES section 7.3.3. Q: I am inside Lord British's
Castle and when I double click on the bag located on the bed that
Lord British has prepared for me I lose my keyboard functions. A:
Pick the bag up first and place it in either your tool belt or your
backpack then double click on it to place or view contents of the
bag. 7.3.4 Q: Why does it rain inside LB's Castle? A: Unknown at
this time. Sloppy collision detecting is this authors guess. 7.3.5
Q: Why does the AI not work most of the time? (retail version) A:
Unknown at this time. Probably OSI ran out of time. should be taken
care of in patch 1.05f UPDATE: Well, after 1.07f combat seems to be
a bit more diffcult, but AI still sucks -wfd 7.3.6. Q: Those
spectres keep killing me, they're invulnerable A: No, they're not.
Try magic. 7.3.7. BUG: Items vanish when inventory full Fill your
inventory to the max, and make sure you have a single handed weapon
and a shield. Now pick up a double handed weapon and equip it as
your weapon. poof - your first sword and shield disappear. UPDATE:
Fixed in last patch 7.3.8. castle music bug: We have a bug in our
save/load that causes this problem. I can't recall currently if
we've fixed it in the patch; if not, we'll look into fixing it (if
we can reproduce it). We had this problem before we shipped, and
thought we'd fixed it....grr. You can go to an earlier savegame
that doesn't play this music; or you can travel the world until
another piece of music replaces this one (this can be hard to do).
(Capn Bill) UPDATE: Fixed in last patch 7.3.9. Q: When swimming the
Avatar is fairly hard to navigate. A: CapnBill: Why is swimming so
hard? I guess we all just got used to it, but many of you have
having trouble with it. The Avatar's collision cylinder stays set
to his full body height (vertically) even while you swim; so, his
invisible cylinder is taller than his body looks like, so he
doesn't seem able to fit through things like he should. I can work
on a fix for this, but all the fixes I can think of involve
dynamically changing his collision cylinder size, which is very
dangerous! Hmm... Update: Today, I found & fixed a bug related
to swimming, that was making it difficult to negotiate the Avatar
around. With the fix, swimming is much better! UPDATE: Swimming
still diffcult but better with latests patch using the fly (noclip)
cheat may help in certain situations. 7.3.10. Q: The Avatar seems
to be impervious to falling damage. A: From CapnBill: Here's an
interesting note (just to clear up any misunderstanding): The fall
rate of NPCs, creatures, and the Avatar in our world is exactly and
precisely 9.81 m/s^2, which is of course the gravitational constant
for our planet earth. As for the Avatar not being damaged enough,
well, mostly that's by design--Richard & Seth, in the spirit of
not wanting this to be an action game, didn't want falling to be a
major risk component to the game dynamic. But, we'll re-evaluate
the amount of damage it does.... 'nuff said. 7.3.11. Q: Some NPCs
seem to hover above the ground. A: CapnBill: Why do NPCs or
creatures hang in mid-air? I've seen this, and it's an artifact of
the way our creatures do collision. Creatures have an invisible
"cylinder" that follows them around; this is their "collision
shape". The cylinder for many creatures is larger than their body
shape. If the creatures walks to the edge of a ledge, his body will
hang off the edge; sometimes, this is so extreme that it looks like
he's floating in mid-air. We always wanted to fix this, but this is
one we'll just have to live with.... 7.3.12. Q: When killing a
monster the contents don't drop on the ground? A: Capn Bill: Why do
some objects hang in mid-air? Because having every object in the
world fall continually is just way too expensive. Objects try to
fall initially; if something blocks them, they "give up". Result:
some objects end up stuck in the air. Bummer. 7.3.13.BUG:Unlimmited
Ammo Endless arrows: you need to know the triple-bow shot for this
one. Fire all your arrows except your last one using single shots.
on your last arrrow, use the triple shot. and yup, 3 arrows come
out, your backpack says you have 1 arrow left, and from that point
on, you can keep firing arrows. 7.3.14.BUG:Binding Telekinesis
spell into spellbook Many people reported they are unable to bind
the telekinesis spell to the spellbook. This is due to a typo in
the reagents in the games manual. Use the ingame manual instead.
7.3.15. Q: How do I pass time. A1: Leave the computer for some time
and the game running A2: If 1 was unaccepteble: There are some
cheats in section 10 to accellerate the flow of time 7.3.16. Q:
When I open the backpack I can attack monsters with spells and the
ignore me until death A: by design bug. removed in 1.18f 7.3.17. Q:
(from newsgroup). Sometimes NPCs refuse to talk to me if I click
them or are innitiating conversation long time after th click A:
(Capnbill) I've found that if a NPC turns his / her back to you
JUST as you click on him / her to talk to the NPC, the game will
wait until the NPC turns back around (which can be up to a minute),
and finally start the converstation... this was rather annoying
with that high-priced blacksmith in Minoc / Cove. 7.3.18. Q: After
thrown into jail and escaping from the dungeon I'm still without my
equipment. A: No bug, just be patient and clean the shrine of
honesty. Return to the Contents
7.4. Savegame
issues
Note: U9 tends to corrupt its savegames sometimes. To protect
your savegames from being corrupted make sure you copy your
savegames to a different folder i.e. after you leave the game 7.4.1
Q: When I open U9 it starts to load the most recent save, like it
should. It loads the music successfully and then as soon as I get
an image, The program closes. I tried moving the most recent
savegame file out of the directory, but then it loads the beginning
of the game instead of the next most recent save! What can I do!?
A: When it starts a new game, run downstairs and pick up your
journal and then try to load a game. It will probably show you a
list of games you can load then choose one other than the one that
keeps crashing on you. 7.4.2. Q: Will my savegames stay usable
after the patches A: Capn Bill said yes. But it is possibly wise to
save your games before patching to another directory UPDATE:
Savegames are compatible between versions, but it is wise to
restart the game after installing the latest patch since some fixes
only take effect if a new game is started Return to the Contents 7.5.
Misc.
Q: Whats this file collis.log A: Debug infos forgotten to take
out. Taken care of in the patch. Return to the Contents
8. ADDITONAL HELP
Return to the Contents 8.1 Official Support
Sources
Electronic Arts Official Support:
http://www.ea.com/tech_support/Contents.html By Fax 650-628-5999
Our fax machine receives faxes 24 hours a day. Faxes are answered
only during working hours (M-F, 8:30a.m. to 4:30p.m., PST) and are
answered in the order they are received. Ultima Ascension Official
Boards http://boards.owo.com/ The QA Board is most likely the best
place to ask about technical related questions. UPDATE: The boards
have been closed by OSI. Some of the boards (techforum)
are still online, but read-only Ultima Ascension Official Webpage
http://www.ultima9.com http://www.ultima-ascension.com Watch here
for official informations and performance tips Return to the
Contents 8.2 Unofficial Support Sources
Ultima Horizons http://www.allgaming.com/ultimaix
Ultima Horizons discussion board: http://www.exprod.com/cgi-bin/index.pl
http://server5.ezboard.com/fultimahorizonsmain.html
if you want to see some pictures of the horizons community, check
CIMs Page: http://uixscreens.virtualave.net/
Ultima Dragons Newsgroup rec.games.computer.ultima.dragons Ultima
Series Newsgroup rec.games.computer.ultima.series This is not an
official support source, but anyway. LBs (public) available
email-adress is: lordbritish@origin.ea.com There are a lot of other
Ultima related pages listed in the "8.4 other
links" section Return to the Contents 8.3 Hardware and Driver Support
8.3.1 Popular Chipset manufacturers: nvidia:
http://www.nvidia.com Reference Drivers for Riva128, TNT, TNT2,
M64, GeForce 3dfx: http://www.3dfx.com Reference Driver for
Voodoo1,2,3+, Banshee 8.3.2 Vendors: Diamond Multimedia:
http://www.diamondmm.com Graphic Boards (Viper, etc) and Sound
Boards Creative Labs: http://www.creative.com Graphic Boards and
Sound Blaster Cards 8.3.3 Tuning and Support Sources RivaZone:
http://www.rivazone.com Rivastation (german):
http://www.rivastation.de Source for Riva Chipset related news,
tools, etc 3dfx.org : http://www.3dfx.org Glide engine newspage
8.3.4.Other Sources Microsoft DirectX Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/directx Latest DirectX runtime and
developer information and download Return to the Contents 8.4 Other Ultima Related Links If you run a
ultima ascension related site and want to get listed here, just
mail me (windforce@gulbsoft.de). Jeff Allens UA walkthrough site,
the Wayward Avatar +++ http://rpgplanet.com/ultima9
jackchaos.com Spanky's Ascension Spoiler Ho-down http://www.jackchaos.com/pfeatures/ascension/spoilers.html
Telerim Dragon's UA newspage and "official unofficial FAQ" http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gjdanger/Terilem/
The Ultima Dungeon a very detailed news and resourcepage http://www.ultimadungeon.com/
NeoCrytes UIX Page (closed) http://ultima9.8m.com/ The Ultimate
Ultima page http://ultimateultima.cjb.net/
If you like to have a look in the past, check the closed down Blue
Boar Tavern http://blueboar.virtualave.net/
Return to the Contents 8.5 Reviews
Section If you spot a review of
UIX, please drop me a line (windforce@gulbsoft.de) Ultima IX:
Ascension Revisited by CGO (01/2000)
http://www.cdmag.com/Home/home.html?article=/articles/026/026/ascension_feature.html
RpgVaults special UIX feature (02/2000)
http://rpgvault.ign.com/features/reviews/ultimaix.shtml Avault:
UIX Review(12/99) http://www.avault.com/reviews/review_temp.asp?game=uix
Desslock's review of UIX http://desslock.gamespot.com/features/ultima/u9review.html
Return to the Contents 8.6 Useful
Utilities windforce@gulbsoft.de) if you
think you should be included here.
. .Return to the Contents
. . /\ . / \ . / !! \ S P O
I L E R A R E A . / \ . . . . . . ****-- END OF TECHNICAL FAQ.
SPOILERS DOWN HERE ****-- . . WARNING: If you intend to play the
game without hints then don't scroll any further . The following
section contains spoilers like easter eggs, links to historical .
Ultima information, cheats and places to visit. You have been
warned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
******************************************************************
10. EASTER EGGS, Cheats and historical Ultima Section SPOILERS
!!!
NOTE: Sensitive spoiler information is ** written from right to
left. ** Return to the Contents
10.1. Cheats
-------- WARNING ON USING THE CHEATS ------------------- Amy
"Cynthe" Sage posted this on the official boards: I'm seeing that
several people have found the ability to include an in-game fly
cheat, and a fast-walking cheat. I feel it necessary to give you
the true scoop on these and what it can do to your game. In
development, our goal was to get where we needed to be to test
things as quickly as we could, so the fly and fast walking cheat
were wonderful tools. However, our game is made to played in a
certain way. For example, if you're supposed to walk into a
clearing and have something happen, there is most likely a trigger
box around the entrance to that clearing. The trigger box is placed
in such a way that you can't help but walk through it, and so the
trigger works. However, if you fly, you can miss these important
spots, and some triggers won't work at all. It can also cause flags
not to be set for the same reason, so someone that's supposed to be
in a certain spot at a certain time won't be there because you
somehow flew past the part that triggered it. The fast-walk cheat
has also been proven to do the same thing. I know from my own
experience that it's possible to not set off triggers and flags
from trigger areas if you use the fast-walk cheat. In the final QA
passes, it was necessary to do everything the long way, using no
cheats, since that is the only way you can be assured of setting
everything off the way it is meant to be done. By no means am I
insinuating that all bugs are the result of people using cheats,
but if you're using one of these, and you're having problems with
triggers not working, or the story not seeming to progress
correctly, chances are you might want to try reloading a saved game
and not using those cheats. Hope that helps. So please, do not
report bugs when you were using the cheats! 10.1.1.Q: Are there any
cheatcodes A: I (windforce) still don't have the game but found
some cheats in the demo exe Invulnerability:
elbarenluvni_ratava_elggot :elif pmk.luafed ruoy ni yek a ot
gnirtsdnammoc gniwollof eht dniB Flying: ylf_ratava_elggot :elif
pmk.luafed ruoy ni yek a ot gnirtsdnammoc gniwollof eht dniB
FastWalk: tsaf_ratava_elggot :elif pmk.luafed ruoy ni yek a ot
gnirtsdnammoc gniwollof eht dniB Pass Time: etunim_eno_ssap,
ruoh_eno_ssap, etunim_eno_ssapnu, ruoh_eno_ssapnu :emit fo wolf eht
etarelecca ot sgnidnibyek lareves era erehT There are some more
commands like this one but I don't know what they are doing:
smrots_elggot, dniw_elggot, nus_elggot, tesnus_esirnus, 10.1.2.
These are EXPLOITS which will *ruin* your game experience and
create a super-avatar. (posted by Ryan Fenton) don't know if they
work in v1.05f 1. Reducing the need for reagents emag eht ni slleps
lla dnib ot tnegaer hcae fo eno ylno deen lliw uoy suhT . yrotnevni
ruoy otni tsnegaer eht dna llorcs eht keat nac uoy lleps eht fo
sdrow eht retne ot pu semoc yrtne txet eht nehw ,slleps gnidnib
nehW 2. Turning "invisible" for monsters. ...nur nac uoy os uoy
erongi lliw esrutaerc yrotnevni eht nepo uoy nehW (Not possible in
1.05f?) 3. Getting unlimited mana. semit detimilnu enod eb nac sihT
.cigam ni esiar ll'uoy esufer uoy fI .thgif a uoy reffo ,dekovorp
fi,lliw ohw namrehsif a si ereht enirhs eht gnisnaelc erofeb
,cisnirT nI Return to the Contents
10.2. Easter Eggs
10.2.1 Avatars House (On earth): hctaw dna semit lareves
rotagirfer eht nepO Maybe this will cool down some of the people
ranting about low fps? 10.2.2 Q: Can I kill Lord British (IN THE
GAME) (...for releasing the game too early;-/) A: Yes, here's how:
yrgnuh teg ot mih rof tiaw tsuj nehT ...etalp eht no daerb rennid
sBL ecalper dna (rood terces) niatirB eltsac ni nehctik eht retne
,ereht ecnO. (etagnoom eht evivrus lliw ti) ainnatirB ot ti ekaT
.(rotagirfer eht ni) noitop nosiop eht htiw ti nosiop dna
erkamdaerb eht ni ruolf fo gab a gnippord yb gnisu daerb a etaerc
htraE nO 10.2.3 Q: Richard Garriot mentioned someday that he would
be in the game in a way no one would expect. Is he? A: Sure he is:
...yromra eht ni retropelet eht ghuorht nosirp niatirB eltsac eht
retnE 10.2.4. Britain: llew eht ni eno worhT .snioc emos era llew
eht raen hcneb a nO .erauqsnwot eht raen llew gnihsiw a si erehTe
10.2.5 StarWars hint: I was searching the northern part of
Britannia and on a beach I saw a small girl who says to me, "I'm
going to marry you someday." On the sand the are the initials A.S.
+ P.S. written with sea shells. Is this supposed to be Anakin
Skywalker + Padme Skywalker? The quote above was taken out of the
movie so this makes sense. UPDATE: This starwars idea was great but
false. actually Amy Sage (AS) put this in. Peter Sage is her
husband :-) May the force....
10.2.6. Garriots holiday travel was to the wreck of the titanic.
there is a reference to this in the museum in britain 10.2.7. The
intro farmer The corpse from the farmer from the intro lies beneath
the column near britain Return to the Contents
10.3. Things from older Ultimas
10.3.1 Q: Anyone seen Smith the Horse ? A: swap raen tsopngis a
no gnignah si ssacrac sih dna daed si htimS 10.3.2 Q: Is Sherry the
mouse in the game? A: Don't know yet. 10.3.3 Remember the guy from
U7 who disguised as the Avatar? .muesum eht dniheb kcahs eht tisiV
Return to the Contents 10.4. Interesting Places
Return to the Contents 10.5. Interesting Things to
do
10.5.1. Gypsy wagon (On earth): Read the book in the back of
the wagon. 10.5.2. Moonglow, (Joshua's house): Read the book on the
floor. 10.5.3. Visit Lord Brinnes grave (behind a burned out
building just behind the west gate cemetary) have a silent prayer
at Lord Brinnes grave. 10.5.4. Read the inscriptions on the
tombstones Return to the Contents
10.6.
General Knowledge
10.6.1. HOWTO create a potion: A: To Create a Potion, place the
reagent and an empty flask on a table with an alchemy lab, then
click the lab and POOF! Potion ready. 10.6.2. HOWTO Character
Classes. To achive a certain character class, just select the
corresponding virtue whenever possible in the gypsys questions.
Starting Equipment Note: All character classes have a Fireball
scroll, a Light scroll, 1 White potion and a bag containing 1
orange and 2 yellow potions in the Stonegate chest)
Compassion-Bard-Weak,Proficient,Dim-30HP,15 mana target bow,
arrows, map of Paws Honesty-Mage-Weak,Clumsy,Brilliant-30HP,35 mana
Arms of the Magi, map of Moonglow
Valor-Fighter-Powerful,Clumsy,Dim-90HP,15 mana Scimitar, map of
Valoria Sacrifice-Tinker-Strong,Nimble,Dim-60HP,15 mana Buckler,
map of Minoc Honor-Paladin-Strong,Clumsy,Smart-60HP,25 mana Chain
Coif, map of Trinsic Justice-Druid-Weak,Nimble,Smart-30HP, 25 mana
Gnarled Staff, map of Yew
Spirituality-Ranger-Strong,Nimble,Smart-60HP, 20 mana Sextant, Gold
Key Humility-Shepherd-Weak,Clumsy,Dim-30HP,25 mana Crook of
Charming 10.6.3. HOWTO bake bread. Way 1: Drop a flourbag on the
breadmaker Return to the Contents
10.7. Who is Who
This section is possibly horribly out of date. please mail me
(windforce@gulbsoft.de) if you can provide me with an update. This
part was written in a hurry and I know I forgot a lot of you, or
even mispelled your names, but horizons is currently offline so I
could not check the Top25... 10.7.1. Officials (Origin Systems)
Listed by callsign on the official boards Producers Knight
(Executive Producer) Pandora (Associate Producer) Programmers
Audball (Audio God) Bill "CapnBill" Randolph (Lead) ChuckyZ GaryS
Jaccl Trellek Artists Bevelator (Lead) BobF GalaxyGrrl Gigboy
Hollywood Jennifer Laszlo Nimrond Vtron Designers Bassanio Craig
Amy "Cynthe" Sage (www.elderberries.com) Richard "LordBritish"
Garriot (Executive Designer) Rand SirPerky Yavn (Lead) -Yos- Misc.
Kezia - Writer LadyMOI/Carly - Minister Of Information/PR 10.7.2.
Nearly Officials Official Board Operators Darkheart (General
Discussion Moderator) IronFury (Q&A Moderator) Durham Dragon
(Q&A CoModerator) Pariah (Rants and Raves Moderator) MithDragon
(Rants and Raves CoModerator) 10.7.3. Well known persons Ultima
Horizons (www.allgaming.com/ultimaix) Officials Jazar
(Host/Webmaster) and Keeper of Snookles Transcending Dragon
(Host/Webmaster) Corinth (Forum Operator and big Top25 cheater :-)
Ultima Horizons (www.allgaming.com/ultimaix) frequent visitors
Snookles, a demonic sheep ED, (evil minion of the guardian trying
to turn UA into Tombraider) Other well known Persons Bob White.
(Once Member of the U9 Developmentteam, sometimes to find at the
horizons) Sith Dragon Keeper of the U9 FAQ and a famous UA Newspage
until he "retired" in '99. Also a frequent visitor of the Horizons.
Stephan "Desslock." Janici. RPG news reporter
(http://desslock.gamespot.com) Mental4 aka Chris Baily. Keeper of
the famous, now offline Ultima@Scorched website for many
years.
Return to the Contents 1.
INSTALLATION ISSUES
NOTE from CapnBill: Performance perception issue: The Install
scales the game engine's settings up, based on the type of CPU you
have. So, if you have a fast CPU, you'll have more bells &
whistles than others, but at the cost of speed. You probably don't
notice the fact that your game looks better than someone else's
(because you can't see their screen), but you do notice that it
doesn't seem to run faster. So, you can just scale down your
Journal Options settings for more speed. 1.1. Q: I chose to install
compressed textures but when I check this in the Hardware Options
the compressed textures setting is not selected. A: When installing
Ultima IX Ascension be sure to choose a custom install and select
compressed textures Note that compressed textures only make sense
for SAVAGE4 based graphics boards 1.2. Q: During installation, I
reached the point where the program asks for an installation
directory. Pressed the "Browse..." button and got an invalid page
fault. A: This is a problem with some video drivers, and not
specific to UIX: A (It's actually the installshield application
that's crashing here, and other apps will crash if you hit the
'browse' button). You should be okay if you manually type in the
path rather than using the browse functions. 1.3. Q: I have chosen
a custom install of Ultima IX Ascension and the installer reported
that zero kilobytes were installed. The installed used 480 MB of
hard drive space? What is taking up so much space? A: The hard
drive space is not missing. Even though there was nothing selected
in the custom install it still copies over the core of the program
resulting in used hard drive space. Q: What version of DirectX
comes with Ultima IX Ascension? A: Ultima IX Ascension includes
DirectX 7. An option to install DirectX 7 appears upon installation
of the game. Many TNT2 and GeForce users are expericiencing
problems with DirectX 7. Consider using DirectX 6.1. A tool for
removing your current DirextX version can be found here:
http://www.ebrink.com/dxun/downloads.html 1.4. Q: The install
program does not run for my system (Voodoo) A: If you have a
DirectX5 driver for your Voodoo card, Install won't run (since
Installing DirectX6 or 7 doesn't remove that driver). Remove the
hardware device from your system and re-add it, then re-install
DirectX7. Install should run then. (from CapnBill) Return to the
Contents 2. IMPROVING SPEED/PERFORMANCE
QUESTION: Can anyone comment on the heat-level which is
produced by UA on the GPU. I remember Unreal being a real killer
causing overheating on many d3d chips. Any comment? (windforce@gulbsoft.de) 2.1 Journal and Ingame Options
2.1.1. A: Tips from the official webpage for performance
tuning: Journal Options are the best way to affect performance. To
maximize your frame rate, set both clipping plane sliders
("Viewable Item Distance" and "Additional Terrain Viewing" all the
way to the left. Then, select the left-most checkbox in the
"Performance vs Quality" section. Close the Journal to save your
settings. Note: if you run the Hardware Setup program after you set
your journal options, you must repeat this step. 2.1.2. A: Try
turning down the details and the viewable distance located in the
options menu in your Journal. There is also the option to turn off
Mip mapping. This can be found by clicking on the Start menu >
Programs > Ultima 9 > Hardware options. TNT1 (maybe also 2,
but untested) Owners: Install the 3.34 Detonator Drivers. Go to
Display Properties|Settings|Advanced| RIVA TNT|Additional
Properties|Direct3d Settings. Make sure "Automatically generate
[text box] mipmap levels." has a value of zero. If it doesn't, your
hardware is automatically using up valuable texture memory on
mipmaps... Infos from the Capn: mip-mapping: Mipmap level of 0
turns mip-mapping off; only the highest detail level is used for
textures. Level 1 is on, with the nearest textures being the
highest detail level. Level 2 is on, with nearest being the
next-lowest detail level, etc. 2.1.3. A: Try bringing the camera
closer into the Avatar using Crtl + Page up. This author has
experienced very good results with this technique. Return to the
Contents 2.2 Hardware and Windows Tuning Options
GENERAL Official Tips from the Development team: - Run
Scandisk/Defrag - Tip 2.2.4 - Setup a 500 MB Swapfile -> 2.2.2 -
Tip 2.2.14 NOTE on MINIMUM SPECS: The minimum specs on the U9 box
are a joke. After watching the boards for some time now it seems
clear that how U9 runs is very system dependant there have been
reports from people running the game fair well on an P 200
(overclocked). Anyway in most cases you definitly want a much more
powerful system than the minimum. Remember, it is an ultima. ***
EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE FASTEST SYSTEM AVAILABLE (Kyrotech 1GHz :)
with a HELL OF RAM, you'll ´most likely get slower results
than other systems if you are not running GLIDE *** NOTE: To allow
you to compare your systems performance with the performance other
users get with their system, I've set up a messageboard at
http://server5.ezboard.com/fgulbsoftforumu9techforum.html It can
also be used to find out what hardware will give you the best
performance when upgrading. (currently 99-12-01 there are approx.
50 posts in the forum. If you want to help, please add you own
system and your performance to the board. Thank you. GENERAL NOTE
for performance tuning. If you can afford it, REFORMAT your
harddisk and do a clean OS installation from the scratch (watch the
infos below, especially those dealing with swapfiles and
installation locations). Don't install DX7! Install DX6.1 first.
Use old drivers for your graphics board. Then, if the game does not
run after tuning, first upgrade your graphics board and again try
all tricks. If it still does not run, try DX7 as latest option. The
game has been in dev. for a long time and it is quite possible that
it runs much better with older drivers. Since you'll have a hard
time trying to uninstall DX7 use DX6 first. You can find dx6 on
most older magazine cds. 2.2. Q: I am getting terrible framerates
in UIX, is there any way to improve my framerate 2.2.1. A: Try
setting your desktop resolution to the same size as the game
resolution (i.e.800x 600). This may also be the reason some people
can not get their mouse to work in some areas of the screen. 2.2.2.
A: Try changing your computer to a file server. Go to
Settings/Control Panel/System/ Performance tab, at the bottom,
click on "file system". Change your HD to be treated like a
"network server". 2.2.2. A: Virtual memory Rules of thumb regarding
virtual memory: 1. In almost every case, you will want to multiply
the amount of ram on your system by 2 to get your virtual memory
size. (ex. 64 megs of ram = 128 meg swap file for virtual mem, 128
megs of ram = 256 meg swap file for virtual memory) 2. A system
with over 64 meg of ram should be set to "network server" under
control panel/system/performance/file system. This is the "typical
role" setting. 3. You should create your own swap file by going to
control panel/system/performance/ virtual memory and specifying
your minimum and maximum the same size. This creates a permanent
swap and keeps windows from expanding and contracting the amount of
space allowed for swap. Letting windows specify on a fragmented
hard drive will really put a hit on performance. 4. When creating a
swap file (changing virtual memory) if possible, Specify a drive
other then your C: drive, BEST ANOTHER PHYSICAL drive (meaning a
partition on another hdd). Also, you should defrag before and after
you set your permanent swap file. 5. There is a such thing as too
much virtual memory when running certain processes including games.
For gaming purposes, you shouldn't need more then twice the amount
of system ram as stated before. Also, a good way to set up a
permanent swapfile in windows is the following: turn off virtual
memory; reboot in safe mode; defrag (this will be horrendously
slow) set virtual memory to a constant size on that drive; reboot;
This ensures a single block of disk space for the swapfile.
Defragging a drive with a swapfile on it does not defrag the
swapfile itself, because win386.swp is a system file--defrag will
not touch those 2.2.3. A: Close all non essential programs
including ICQ. If you have things like "crash guard" running in the
background this will hurt your performance and probably also cause
other problems with the game, the best bet is to close all non
critical programs before running U9 check task manager by hitting
ctrl-alt-delete there should really only be two things listed here.
explorer and systray ...and I've heard you can do without systray
as well. 2.2.4. A: Try turning off mipmapping with the Hardware
Setup of UIX. (Official) Selecting a lower detail level for
mip-mapping can improve D3D performance. Lower detail levels
require less video memory, and take less time to load from disk.
But, they look a bit blurrier. You can also turn mip-mapping off.
This also reduces your video memory requirements, and can improve
performance. 2.2.5. A: Defragment your hard drives. There is a
built-in utility in Windows 9X. Go the Help file and lookup
Defragment under the Contentstab. A thing to consider is the
Windows 98 utility does not defrag your VM swap file, consider
using Norton Disk Doctors Speed Disk. 2.2.6. A: Purchase more RAM
if you have less than 128megs. Many people report good results with
128 and even better results with 256 megs. You can never have TOO
much RAM. 2.2.7. A: If you own a Glide card yet have D3D card
installed..try reinstalling your Glide Card. 2.2.8. A: Play around
with your resolution settings. Many people experience better
framerates at higher levels. 2.2.9.A: If the game runs slow with
16-bit textures, consider reinstalling using 8-bit textures.
2.2.10.A: Since ram is the big factor in this game, you need to
make sure you have as MUCH free as possible when loading into the
game. There is a great program found
at:http://tweakbase.gxnetwork.com called Cacheman. It allows you to
change some internal settings in windows (min/max file cache sizes,
etc) that free up ram considerably, AS WELL AS HELP DISK
PERFORMANCE. Try using these settings with it: Min / Max cache 1mb
/ 6mb ChunkSize 256 (helped disk performance alot) FileCache 2048
DirCache 64 For those that are scared to mess with these things,
these settings are extremely conservative, only a shade lower than
the original settings. However, after doing this,normally my system
on bootup would have approx 30mb of the 64mb free (cacheman can
tell you this). After doing the changes, it went up to 43mb free.
2.2.11.A: If you have Office 97 installed it can take up huge
amounts of system resources... To increase your speed follow this
procedure: 1. Open control panel2. Run Find Fast3. Press the menu
called 'Contents' 2. Press 'Delete Contents...' 3. Delete all of
the Contentses, you should only have one on your 'C:' 4. Press 'Ok'
5. Press the menu called 'Contents' again8. Press 'Close and Stop'
Reboot your system and then try Ultima IX again You can also remove
findfast.exe from the autostart by using msconfig.exe 2.2.12.A:
Change your hard Drives to DMA. Some people have experienced less
HD swapping by doing this. Go to windows control
panel/system/device manager then click on the disk drives
folder..find the folder that most resembles your hard drive (ex.
GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47) then click on that and hit the properties
button at the bottom. Under settings you will see a list of
settings, some will have check marks others will not. Some boxes
may be greyed out (unavailable). You "should" see a box that says
dma. If its not greyed-out check it and restart your computer. If
it's greyed out or there is no box.. chances are your hard drive
does not support it. WARNING. Some overclocked systems may not be
handle DMA correctly. If you have overclocked you CPU activating
DMA may lead to Data corruption on the HDD 2.2.13 A: Try shutting
down USB to improve performance. 2.2.14.A: This tip was grapped
from the official boards and confirmed later by Origin as
performance tip: - Start the game: - Once you're in the game, press
Alt+Esc to go to the desktop. - Press CTRL+ALT+DEL once to pull up
the list of running programs. - There is two entries, Ultima 9 and
U9. - End Task on U9. It'll come back saying not responding, so End
Task again. - Then just go back to the game. If you are not able to
do alt-esc check section 6 on how to activate. Looks like this u9
process is the copy protection and consuming some amount of
performance. Is I understand this kind of cp it is used once to
decrypt u9.exe which is encrypted on the cd. Maybe it respawns when
you are reloading while in the game. Especially users with a
geforce256 and 2.08 drivers seem to be have a performance gain on
that 2.2.15.A: Try setting the Maxlight setting in options.ini
(section 5) to 2. Users report that this does not affect the visual
qualtiy very much. 2.2.16.A: I own a Savage3d Graphics board. How
do I enable texture compression? To enable it in the options.ini:
Use16BitTextures=1 2.2.17.A: Regarding IDE drives, if you want to
go into detail on this matter in the FAQ, here is some info that
may be helpful: IDE devices connect to IDE channels, up to 2
devices per channel 2 IDE devices on the same channel can _NOT_
operate simultaneously. A swapfile on a different drive, but on the
same channel as an a drive hosting an application (i.e. U9) is
slower than a swapfile on the same drive as the application. In the
IDE world, moving the swapfile to a different drive _ONLY_ helps if
that drive is on a different IDE channel If the CD drive running
the game shares a channel with your application drive or swapfile
drive, there is a major performance hit. Most people only have 2
IDE channels in their machine. If their CD drives are connected to
one, and their hard drives share the other, then the swapfile
should reside _ON_ the drive they run U9 from. They should only
move the swapfile if they have extra IDE channels (i.e. with the
Abit BE6, BP6 or ZX6 mobos or an addon card with more IDE channels)
and can give all their drives a separate channel. Return to the
Contents 2.3. HARDWARE SETUP PROGRAM
2.3.1. NOTE from the DevTeam: We've identified another bug in
the Hardware Setup program; it over-writes any settings you made in
your Journal Options. So, if you set your Journal to make the game
run faster, then run the Hardware Setup program, you game will
probably run slower. To fix this, just change the Options in your
Journal again. We're fixing the Hardware Setup program; it'll
appear in a future patch. Return to the Contents 2.4. 3DFX/GLIDE
ISSUES/SUGGESTIONS
NOTE: Make sure you have the latest drivers from www.3dfx.xom
This list is from the official website: Supported 3dfx Hardware:
Voodoo1 Voodoo2 Voodoo3 2.4.1. First you want to try the following
tips from the official webpage 1. Make sure you install and run
with 8-bit textures. 2. Run the game, and use your in-game Journal
to change your game Options for maximum speed 2.4.2. One user
suggested the following settings for a Voodoo 3 under the
system.ini [vcache] Chunksize=12288 MinFileCache=8192
MaxFileCache=8192 2.4.3. Q: I have a Voodoo 3 and I am running in
Direct 3D but It does not look as good as Glide. A: Select Glide as
the API 2.4.4. Q: I see rainbow textures at lower resolutions. A:
Try a higher resolution 2.4.5 Another author has found that a
single V2 (8 megs) works better than a v3 2000 on a comparable
system. Go figure. Sigh. (:P 2.4.6. Q: I have grey boxes around my
cursor and the interface A: Running on glide 2.5? Get the latest
drivers from 3dfx.com. Return to the Contents 2.5. D3d
ISSUE/SUGGESTIONS
*** NOTE: OSI has repeatedly emphasized that UIX is
specifically optimized for GLIDE. You may want to consider buying
one or two Voodoo 2 Cards and run them in SLI Mode (Richard
Garriots prefered config) or a Voodoo3 2000 for $75. Go to
pricewatch.com for the best prices. *** Apply the latest patch
before using any of this tricks!!! This list is from the
official website: Supported Direct3D Hardware: ATI Rage 128, Rage
Pro Matrox G200, G400 nVidia Riva 128 ,TNT, TNT2* ,GeForce*
Rendition 2200 S3 Savage4 * The latest Detonator drivers (version
3.53 and 3.56) released for these cards are not compatible with the
initial version of Ultima IX. You must use different drivers for
these cards or install patch 1.05f+ NOTE on TNT and DX7 and
*unpatched* retail version (DevTeam) We found an issue with the
3.53 drivers and DirectX 7 when it was too late to fix before
shipping. As some of the players have discovered, the older (2.08
or 2.40) drivers work well with DirectX 6.1 UPDATE: Should be
solved with patch 1.05f. Note on DirectX7: DirectX 7 is still
fairly new. Hardware manufacturers have not had time to optimize
their drivers fully yet. So, older DirectX 6.1 drivers may give you
better performance. Contact your video card manufacturer for these
drivers. Yet more on performance differences between DX6 and DX7
from CapnBill: providing native DX7 support was something we never
had time for. When we implemented our D3D pipeline, we only had DX6
available. DX7 became available in beta form before we shipped, and
in final form only a couple of weeks before we shipped (remember,
we had to code freeze in early October and only fix bugs from that
point forward). We tested the product with DX7, but were unaware of
a performance difference between DX6 & DX7; we tested mainly
for functionality and crashes. I'll be interested to learn, over
the next few days, why there is a performance difference. We're not
"blaming" DX7 for performance, any more than we're "blaming" our
own code. The fact that there is a difference, however, needs to be
communicated to the customer base. UPDATE: with patch #118f native
DX 7 support is added to the game. Note on Running Win2k from
CapnBill: Win2k (builds 2153? and greater) *require* DX7 drivers
for D3D. There is a list of currently supported cards and cards
with support forthcoming, but I'm not aware of what they are.
Anybody who plays Ascension here at the office under Win2K is most
likely running Glide on a Voodoo[1,2,3] card. Note on Windows 98
and TNT cards : If so, did you re-install DirectX as part of the
game's install? We've had similar problems with TNT cards and
Win98. Sometimes, Win98 suddenly starts crashing constantly,
usually in an app called MPREXE or something like that; that's part
of explorer. Sometimes this would happen even without changing the
Windows configuration in any way; it suddenly just decided it hated
the video driver. If this is the problem you're having, it's
related to the TNT driver, not the game. I'll pass this on to
customer service--they should be able to recommend a fix. I think
you may need to re-install your video driver. (Capn Bill).
UPDATE: seems patched with new detonator drivers and #118f The following text file is included
with patch #118f:
FAQ 1.7 0. Patch related issues 0.5.3 Patch version number
(copy from 0.4.3) 7.1.Plot related issues 7.1.18 "Silver Serpent
Bug" 7.3. Gameplay issues 7.3.17. NPCs refuse conversation bug.
7.3.18. Equipment after jail? FAQ 1.6 2000-02-08 - Updated the FAQ
with all relevant patch information and patch
problems (far too many items updated to list) - Added new links to
reviews and other
pages - Removed all "upcoming patches infos" - Added utility section - OSI removed their active UIX message
boards while preparing for
the international release of the game :-(. Some boards are
still
up but read-only. Some New Issues: 0. Patch related issues 0.1
Patch information upated about #1.18f 0.2. Patch download location
0.3 "Patch #1.07f bugs" 2.5.Specific D3d solutions - Added infos
about best settings for several graphic adaptors - Added infos
about "invalid caps error" 4. Sound issues 4.7. Whistling gone 6.
Interface/Controlling/UI issues (Mouse/Keyboard function) 6.10.
mouse inversion 5.2 default.kmp file Updated with #1.18f keyboard
commands 7.1.Plot related issues 7.1.13 "Mantra of compassion"
7.1.14 "Vassagralem EggQuest plotstopper" 7.1.15 "Shamino
plotstopper" 7.1.16 "Demon Bug" 7.1.17 "Valoria Bug" FAQ 1.5
1999-12-10 - Done a full german translation (finally!). fetch it
at: http://www.gulbsoft.de/faq.latest.german.html
- Added several information about upcoming patches - New Issues 0.2
Problems with patch 1.05f 0.2.2 Patching fails for patch #1 (1.05f)
- Updated Issues 0.2 Problems with patch 1.05f 0.2.1 (Version
number does not change after patch 1.05f) 1. Installation Issues
1.1 (Compressed Textures) FAQ 1.4 1999-12-06 - Added all
Information about the first patch (v1.05) in Section 0 - Added TOP
Tips Section - Added section 8.4: Other ultima Related links -
Added Section 8.5: Reviews - Upgraded all information to fit to the
patch. - Jeff Allens Walkthrough URL has changed to
http://rpgplanet.com/ultima9 - Added some stuff in Section 10
(Easter eggs, etc) - Added Commented Sample Keymap (from RG) (5.2)
- New Issues: 0.2 Problems with patch 1.05f 0.2.1 Invalid Pixel
format error does still appear 0.2.2 (Patch failed) 2.4. Specific
3dfx solutions Added list of compatible hardware(from ultima9.com)
2.5. Specific D3d solutions Added list of compatible hardware(from
ultima9.com) 3. Movies Issues 3.5 (Movies on hdd) 7.2. Gameplay
crashes and quirks 7.2.9. (water jump crash) 7.3. Gameplay issues
7.3.15. (passing time) 7.3.16. (backpack kills monster AI) -
Updates 2.2. Hardware and System tuning 2.2.5. (defrag) 2.5.
Specific D3d solutions 2.5.4. (invalid pixel format) 2.5.7. (AGP
Aperture size) 6. Interface/Controller issues 6.1 (Alt-TAB) 7.1.
Plot related issues 7.1.1. Changed Jeff Allens Walkthrough URL 7.3.
Gameplay issues 7.3.5 (AI not working) 7.3.14.(Unable to bind
telekinesis spell) 7.1. Plot related issues 7.1.12 "Compassion
shrine 2" 7.4. Savegame issues 7.4.2. Savegame usage after the
patch FAQ 1.3 1999-12-02 - Added the information from CapnBills
daily report (1999-12-01) - Added Easter Eggs, cheats and ultima
historical section (changes will not be listed in the revision
history for they may contains spoilers). - Put some order in
section 5 (options.ini). - Added 2.6. Visual Quirks, Graphical
glitches section - There are now ~50 configurations described at
the tech survey board at
http://server5.ezboard.com/fgulbsoftforumu9techforum.html - Added
Section 8.3 Hardware and Driver Support Sources - Added Section 2.7
CD-ROM Problems - New Issues: 1. Installation Issues: 1.5 (Install
does'nt run) 2.2 General Performance Issuse 2.2.16 (enabling
Savage3d compression) 2.4. Specific 3dfx solutions 2.4.6. (gray
boxes at cursor) 2.5. Specific D3d solutions 2.5.8. (8bit not
working on d3dcard), 2.5.9. (Setup detecting wrong videocard)
2.5.10.(Viper550 speedup), 2.5.11. (TNT Speedup) 2.6. Visual
Quirks, Graphical glitches 2.6.1. (Unfiltered Textures), 2.6.2
(pixelated toolbelt), 2.6.3 (gray boxes) 4. Spound issues. 4.6.
(Sb-Life unload fonts) 5. Options.ini file Added some comments 6.
Interface/Controlling/UI issues (Mouse/Keyboard function) 6.8.
(unable to move), 6.9. (Bagpack crash bug) 7.1. Plot related issues
7.1.7. (Alphawolf Bug),7.1.8 (Elevator Bug, Hyloth) 7.2. Gameplay
crashes and quirks: 7.2.6.(Game crashes on first start),
7.2.7.(frequent game crashes) 7.2.8. (Crash to desktop on start)
7.3. Gameplay issues: 7.3.7. (vanishing items) 7.3.9 (swimming),
7.3.10 (falling damage), 7.3.11 (hovering Npcs), 7.3.12 (hovering
objects), 7.3.13.(Unlimmited Ammo bug) 7.1.9. (Hyloth Gate
Crashbug), 7.1.10 (Hyloth Dialog Bug) 7.3.14.(Unable to bind spell)
7.1.11.(compassion shrine done not recognized) - Updated Issues:
0.1. Patch Information Added some more information on the upcoming
patches 2.2. Hardware and Windows Tuning 2.2.2 (Swapfile)
2.2.4.(MipMapping off) 2.2.12(DMA) 2.2.14.(killing task) 2.5.
Specific D3d solutions: 2.5 (Updated Notes) 2.5.4. (Invalid Pixel
Format on TNT cards) 2.5.7. (AGP Aperture Size) 8. Additional
Help/Links 8.2 Added some newsgroups and links 8.3 Section added
FAQ 1.2 * Reorganized the FAQ * 1999-12-01 - Added Hardware
Comparison Board at
http://server5.ezboard.com/fgulbsoftforumu9techforum.html - Added
Option.ini Section - Added Credits Section - Created
Interface/UI/Controlling Section - Added link for removing DirectX
FAQ 1.1 German translation released at
http://www.gulbsoft.de/u9techfaq/Contentsger.html Return to the
Contents
List of Quicktips to
get Ascension up running To validate which tips work best,
please, if you can improve your performance /reduce crashes by tips
from this faq, drop me(windforce@gulbsoft.de) a line or write it
directly with your system specs here:
http://server5.ezboard.com/fgulbsoftforumu9techforum.showMessage?topicID=2.topic
Thanks alot! NOTE: The numbers next to the tip are the reference
numbers for this issue in the Unofficial UA TechSuppFAQ at
http://www.gulbsoft.de/faq.latest.txt TOP System realated tips. 1.
Install the patch! 2. Use a glide compatible graphics board, best
v3. 3. If you have a d3d board, use directx 6.1 instead of 7. Don't
use the latest detonator drivers! (2.5) (only applies to UNPATCHED
VERSION) 4. Set up a fixed Swapfile with a size of 2x your ram on a
seperate disk (2.2.2) 5. To reduce the effect of memory leaks,
reboot after playing about an hour
if playing with an older patch .(7.2.3) 6. Adjust your vcache
setting for less swapping (2.2.10) 7. Upgrade to more RAM (128 is
recommended, 256 are great, 512 are in RGs system) 2.2.6 Game
Tweaking issues 1) Install the patch! 2) Do NOT USE the surround
sound setting in options ini. Use stereo or head phones instead!
(4.1.3) 3) Disable EAX (4.1.4) 4) Use 8 bit textures if possible
(2.2.9.) 5) Do a full install and put movies on your hdd (fix path
in options.ini) 6) Turn off mipmaps in the game (install/options
in) and in your Display Properties. (2.2.4) 7) Zoom the camera in
(crtl-p) 8) Reduce clippling plane (journal or options.ini) 9) Kill
the U9 Task (2.2.14) A) If you used the hardware setup program.
Redo all tweaks since it overwrites the options.ini (2.3.1),
(2.5.10) B) Set your resolution and colordepth on the desktop to
the same of the game. (2.2.1) If nothing of works be sure to check
the full FAQ at http://www.gulbsoft.de/faq.latest.html Windforce
Dragon *Unofficial UA Technical Support FAQ*
0. PATCH INFORMATION (as
00-02-10)
0.1 Patch
Availability (as 00-02-10)
0.1.1 Current Patch The most current (and most likely the last)
patch for UIX is
patch #1.18f 0.2 Patch
Downloadlocations * NOTE THAT THE LATEST PATCH INCLUDES ALL PRIOR
PATCHES* 1.18f ftp://ftp.owo.com/pub/ua/patch/u9patch118.exe
1.07f ftp://ftp.owo.com/pub/ua/patch/u9patch107.exe
1.05f ftp://ftp.owo.com/pub/ua/patch/u9patch105.exe
0.3. Latest Patch
Description the following text is copied from the patch.txt #1.18f
note that it contains HEAVY SPOILERS, so click here to skip that part --- Ultima IX:
Ascension Copyright (c) 1999 ORIGIN Systems, Inc. Patch version
1.18F (01/10/99) !!!WARNING!!! Spoilers in the information below.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Notes:
------------------------------------------------------------- - For
additional support information and tips on improving game
performance please visit our website at http://www.ultima9.com. -
For tips on improving game performance please refer to the
PERFORM.TXT included with this patch. - If you find you get stuck
after casting a spell, hit the ESC key. The spell has probably not
found a target and is waiting in spell targeting mode. - If you
pressed Alt-Tab while in the game it could crash on some systems.
Alt-Tab has been locked out. However, on occasion it will still
cause a crash. We recommend that you do not run any other programs
while running Ultima IX. - If you have Norton Utilities and
uninstall Ultima IX: Ascension, make sure you right click on your
Recycle Bin and select Empty Norton Protected Files to free up the
space on your hard drive as Norton makes a backup of any deleted
files. - If you find that your video card is not selectable during
installation, try changing your desktop color depth to 16-bit. To
do this, right click on an empty space on your desktop and select
Properties. This will bring up the Display Properties dialog box.
Click on the Settings tab. In the section that says Colors select
High Color (16 bit). Click on OK. Try running Setup again. - If you
find some music is not stopping (i.e. Hail Britannia) we have added
a new key command to the game to flush the music system. This key
is located in KEYMAP.NEW (search for flush_music) and should be
copied into your DEFAULT.KMP file. (You can also simply copy the
new file on top of DEFAULT.KMP to completely replace/update
keymaps.) In a place where Hail Britannia is playing and you are
not near Lord British's castle press CTRL+ALT+M and the music will
stop. Music will then cue up normally. - We added a key command to
cancel all Avatar spells. This will allow you to cancel all spells
at once or "stuck" spells that are not cancelling when recast. This
key is located in KEYMAP.NEW (search for flush_spells) and should
be copied into your DEFAULT.KMP file. (You can also simply copy the
new file on top of DEFAULT.KMP to completely replace/update
keymaps.) Press CTRL+ALT+S and the spells will be canceled. - We
added the ability to use the keyboard to control mimic mouse
control. These keys need to be added to your DEFAULT.KMP file. The
patch installs a new keymap file for you, called KEYMAP.NEW. If you
have not modified key mappings yourself, simply delete DEFAULT.KMP
and rename KEYMAP.NEW to DEFAULT.KMP. If you have altered your
DEFAULT.KMP for your own preference, follow these steps to add the
keys. Edit your DEFAULT.KMP file located in the directory you
installed Ultima IX (default is c:\Program Files\Origin
Systems\Ultima IX). Find the section labeled [General] and add the
appropriate lines (for example): ctrl+alt+m = flush_music
ctrl+alt+s = flush_spells ; Keyboard shortcuts to movement Up =
forward Down = backward Left = sidestep_left Right = sidestep_right
Delete = mouse_left End = mouse_right PageUp = mouse_up PageDown =
mouse_down ; Numeric Keypad movement keys (Audball's preferences) ;
Double-defines for NumLock being on or off. KeyPad+ = mouse_button2
KeyPad0 = mouse_button1 KeyPadInsert = mouse_button1 KeyPad4 =
mouse_left KeyPadLeft = mouse_left KeyPad6 = mouse_right
KeyPadRight = mouse_right KeyPad8 = mouse_up KeyPadUp = mouse_up
KeyPad2 = mouse_down KeyPadDown = mouse_down KeyPad7 =
sidestep_left KeyPadHome = sidestep_left KeyPad9 = sidestep_right
KeyPadPageUp = sidestep_right Save the file and exit. The next time
you run Ascension the keys will be enabled. NOTE: PageUp and
PageDown are already mapped to functions that turn journal/book
pages left and right in the original keymap file. Mapping them to
mouse_up and mouse_down will cause the journal functions to no
longer work. Either remap the page flipping commands, or do not
copy the new mappings into your original keymap.
------------------------------------------------------------- What
is Fixed in the Patch (1.18f):
------------------------------------------------------------- -
Fixed a crash in Valoria, involving a creeper plant. - Fixed a
plot-stopper involving the demons in Valoria. - Fixed a
plot-stopper involving Shamino's conversation. - Fixed a crash in
Wrong, involving an NPC who was attempting to go to an invalid
location. - Fixed a lockup in Wrong involving getting your backpack
returned. - Fixed a crash involving invalid music playing after a
game is loaded. - Fixed a crash involving the Jade Bracelet for
sale in Paws. - Fixed an audio problem involving the Avatar's
sounds not playing in Windows 95. NOTE: If you modified your
'Options.ini' file to attempt to get these sounds playing, please
revert/undo your changes. After this patch is installed, please set
UseNotify=0 and Rolloff=1.0. - Fixed a crash in the near-endgame
scene involving Lord British and Blackthorn. - Fixed a bug
involving creature generators that was creating problems with
collision. - Fixed a problem on startup where the EAX environmental
settings were either being set incorrectly, or preventing startup
altogether. - Made additional D3D improvements. D3D is now native
to DirectX 7. Supports bilinear filtering of alpha textures in
16-bit via multipass rendering of the same texture, if that feature
is supported on the given D3D hardware. - Compressed textures are
now properly supported on all platforms except nVidia's; this is a
driver issue. The Savage4 card is one of the top performers as a
result. - GeForce is now supported properly. - Screen shots in
Voodoo2 SLI mode now work properly. - Fixed numerous moderate
memory leaks. - Fixed a severe memory leak that would manifest if
you open a book, then Alt-Tab away from the game. - Lifts received
a code overhaul, and now function more reliably. If the Avatar
moves while on a lift, the lift halts its movement until the Avatar
stands still. - Fixed a problem with the Moonglow boat lift where
you would sometimes fall through it. - Fixed a vertical lift in
Hythloth that was unreliable. - Fixed a vertical lift in Yew; added
a button at ground-level to summon it. - Fixed several inventory
gold overflow crashes. - Sometimes, starting a new game in version
1.06 (Patch #2) would not work properly; this is now fixed. - Fixed
several problems in the Spirit summoning rituals. - Numerous bugs
in the installer have been fixed. If you re-install the game with
the fixed installer (available on the remastered CD), the game
installs more reliably and runs more smoothly. - The new install
handles installation of DXMedia, which is required for movies to
work properly. - Suppressed humming and whistling of the Avatar,
and any NPC who is in the process of dying. - Added an LODScale
value to OPTIONS.INI; scales the distance at which LODs change. -
Avatar coughing & whistling is eliminated. - You can no longer
charm the Guardian. - If you put more than 2047 objects into a
single room-sized area, the game now issues a fatal error and exits
(before it would just crash).
------------------------------------------------------------- What
is Fixed in the Patch (1.06f):
------------------------------------------------------------- -
Made additional D3D improvements. - Fixed an issue in D3D in
resolutions higher than 640x480 where the camera could only turn in
one direction. - Fixed an issue on the TNT cards where the Avatar's
responses were not displaying. - Fixed a crash that could occur if
you saved your game while underwater. - Fixed a crash that could
happen when the earthquakes occurred in Covetous. - Fixed a crash
that could occur in the prison Wrong when walking down the hallway
near the false Raven's cell. - Fixed a crash that could occur if
you tried to bind reagents using the binding circles in Moonglow or
Wrong. - Fixed a number of miscellaneous crashes. - Fixed a few
issues with the Hardware Setup program that would reset the options
settings to the defaults. - There were some situations where an
item could disappear if your inventory was full and you swapped
your sword and shield for a two handed weapon. We addressed this. -
Improved creature reaction to ranged attacks. - Made it so your
spells are canceled if your spellbook is taken away like when your
are sent to Despise or captured in Wrong. Thus your mana will not
continue to drain. - Fixed a problem where some spells could get
"stuck" on and not be canceled. - Fixed a problem where the Stone
spell would fizzle if you were using auto-targeting. - Fixed a
problem where the Kiran Shield would give you an extra 5 mana if
you were out of mana when you took it off. - Fixed a problem where
if you cast Light from a scroll it would use some of your mana. -
Fixed an issue where pigs would end up propogating like rabbits in
certain areas of the world. - The flag to allow you to speak with
Eustus is now set when you read the Book of Justice as well as when
you speak with Vasaglarem. Thus you can now get the Quill from him
when either action is taken. - Fixed an issue where some of the
trainers would give you the option to train again (they wouldn't
train you again, just offer) after you had trained once. - Fixed an
issue with Desbet where he would not talk to you again if you did
not have the gargoyle queen egg. You will now be able to come back
and speak with him again. - Fixed an issue where Amoranth acted
like you had the candle of love when you did not. - Fixed an issue
where Marek the fisherman would give you a Karma boost multiple
times. - Fixed Phineus so you could talk to him in mid-fight in the
arena and get your belongings back. You will have to start the
fight over and still have to win three fights in a row to get a
skill increase and you will have to pay again if you do this. -
Fixed a problem with Felix and Castro where you could not get the
information about the Kiran Stones if you said goodbye immediately.
- Fixed an issue with Sarah where you could exit the conversation
and then not have the option to get the mantra from her later. -
Fixed a problem where the Avatar could sometimes become stuck
inside a rock, or a wall/ - Fixed a bug in swimming that made
swimming very difficult. - Fixed an issue in Moonglow where the
magical airship would not return if you fell off of it. It now
appears back at its original starting point (Tydus' house) when you
take the lift up. Also increased the speed the ship travels. -
Fixed an issue in Valoria where the Demons could be killed early
which prevented you from finding the Dagger of Valor. - Fixed a
section of Covetous where the lava would sometimes rise too high. -
There was one point in the game where the Guardian could be killed
(though it was extremely difficult), making the game unfinishable.
This has been fixed. - You now receive a karma boost for finishing
the water valve quest in Paws. - Vasaglarem now leaves Lord
British's castle after the shrine of compassion is cleansed (as was
originally intended). - Fixed the point where you could get the
Hail Britannia music stuck and cause it to repeat for the rest of
the game. Those of you who already have this problem with your
savegame use the flush_music command described in "Additional
Notes" above. - Fixed an issue where the lift to Vasaglarem's House
in Yew would not return if you have already used it. When speaking
to Desbet the lever to call the lift back will reveal. If you
install the patch before entering Britannia this lever will be
visible at the outset. - Fixed an issue with Raleigh where he would
sell you a Longbow if you selected Composite Bow or War Bow. He now
offers the correct weapons and prices. - Fixed an issue where the
game would lock if you purchased a jade bracelet from Irene in
Cove. - Fixed an issue with Leeland in Moonglow so he doesn't say
his daddy's gonna die over and over again.
------------------------------------------------------------- There
are a few items that will only be reflected if you install the
patch before you reach a certain point in the game. Note that these
fixes are less critical to your gaming enjoyment (the game still
works, we just improved upon a few things) and you are not required
to start over. The patch will still fix the issues listed above
regardless of how much you've played.
------------------------------------------------------------- -
Fixed an issue in New Magincia where the quest was not completable
if you went to Ambrosia/Hythloth first. Note: You may be able to
continue with an existing savegame depending upon how the quest was
triggered. This will fix the problem 100% of the time if you have a
savegame anytime before you received the quest from Katrina. - The
lighthouses without gems were emitting light before the gems were
placed. This will be fixed if you install the patch before you
arrive in Britannia. - Aidon now consistently returns to his house
in Britain after you free his daughter in Paws. This will be fixed
if you install the patch before you arrive in Britannia. - Fixed an
issue where you could fall through the lift in Covetous. If you
install the patch before enter Covetous you will see this change. -
Fixed an issue where the Silver Serpent prison would be unlocked
but he would not be free. This would only occur if you got the key,
left the cave and then returned later to free him. If you install
the patch before you arrive in Britannia you will see this change.
- Fixed an issue where the flag wasn't properly being set when you
picked up the glyph of compassion. This would cause Raven to not
show up outside of Despise and the Mayor to not move to Paws. You
will see this fix if you install the patch before entering Despise.
- Fixed an issue with a cave along the coast of Minoc where some
invisible lava existed. If you install the patch before you arrive
in Britannia you will see this change. - Fixed an issue in Terfin
where a large stone block could randomly block the path to
continue. You will see this fix if you install the patch before
entering the Terfin dungeon for the first time. - Fixed the
shrinking room in Hythloth so the water does not rise until you
have exited the pipe, thus preventing the random occurrence of
getting stuck as the water rose. You will see this fix if you
install the patch before arriving in Hythloth. - Fixed an issue
where the water levels were not rising and falling consistently in
the same area of Hythloth. Again, you will see this fix if you
install the patch before entering Hythloth. - Fixed a situation
that could cause Raxos to end up in the ceiling. You can see this
fix if you install the patch before you arrive in Britannia. -
Fixed several instances where NPCs could end up standing on top of
furniture. You can see this fix if you install the patch before you
arrive in Britannia. - Fixed a situation where you could crash when
using the teleport pads in Wrong. You will see this fix if you
install the patch before entering Wrong.
------------------------------------------------------------- What
is Fixed in the Patch (1.05f):
------------------------------------------------------------- -
Further optimization of the Direct3D support. - Fixed an issue
where the Detonator 3.53 drivers were not working properly with the
game with DirectX 7 installed. - Addressed a problem with the Riva
128 and Intel I740 with certain drivers and DirectX 7. - At times,
monsters would not be properly hostile to the Avatar. Many of these
situations have been addressed. - There was an issue where the fire
arrows would not fire when using the most common oil flasks in the
game. - If you had your bow drawn and then opened your backpack,
the arrow count would read 1, regardless of the actual count. - If
you jumped in water twice in specific situations would cause the
Avatar to lock up. This is fixed. - The zoom reset key
(ctrl-insert) has been fixed. - Addressed a crash that can occur if
you save the game while poisoned then load that game and try to
continue. - If you place an item between the compass and backpack
the game would sometimes crash. - When manipulating bags there was
a random lockup that could occur. This has been fixed. - If you
dragged a bag while the bag gump was open you could have interface
troubles. This was addressed. - Fixed an issue if the Spellbook was
placed in a bag, it was not being added to the interface. - The
duration of spells (which have a duration) cast from scrolls has
been increased. - The Day spell has been adjusted so that it will
not temporarily blink out i spell while the backpack or bag is
open, they will be closed so the monsters may respond.
Additionally, quick targeting is now disabled when the backpack or
bag is open. - Fixed an issue where Rupert the blacksmith (in
Trinsic) would not always recognize that you had blackrock and thus
will not make a Blackrock sword for you. - We found and fixed
several areas where Raven would provide incorrect conversation
options. - Added an option to have Raxos give you the key to Nico's
cell after the Shrine of Sacrifice is cleansed. You no longer have
to kill the repentant man to free Nico. - You no longer have the
option to ask Lord British about the shortcut to Yew once he has
shown it to you. - The speech for the two drinking skeletons near
Britain is now playing (the text was only displaying before). -
Eustus would not speak to you if you clicked on him. Thus you had
to walk away and approach again if you did not answer his
questions. Note: he still no longer has anything to say once you
have received the Quill of Justice. This is as we designed it. -
Fixed a few areas that were not playing the correct city music. -
The text for the Blackthorn note was too long for the scroll it was
on and thus you could not read the entire thing. The scroll has
been extended. - Groldek (the evil Archmage in Serpent's Hold) was
not casting his spells correctly and would try to walk forward off
his platform. He now cast the proper spells and stays put. -
Addressed an issue where two characters would rush each other in an
in-game cinematic (while using their magic). They now stand still.
- Fixed a problem in Despise where you would get a Karma hit even
if you saved Thadious (should only do so if you let him die). -
Fixed a problem with the blacksmiths where they were not offering
any money for the blackrock sword. - Fixed some incorrect labels in
the Minoc vendors (e.g. said "Dozen Oil Flasks" when it would only
sell you one.) - Fixed a problem in the Abyss where the fireballs
would be left behind in the hall, preventing progress later. -
There were times when the small rowboat that sailed you to the
secret entrance of Wrong would not show up. Made this more
reliable. - Fixed an issue where the secret cave from Buccaneer's
Den to New Magincia would open the false path when you tried to
travel from Buccaneer's Den a second time. - There was a point
northwest of Yew that would sometimes get stuck repeating the same
sound over and over. This has been addressed.
-------------------------------------------------------------
There are a few
items that will only be reflected if you install the patch before
you reach a certain point in the game. Note that these fixes are
less critical to your gaming enjoyment (the game still works, we
just improved upon a few things) and you are not required to start
over. The patch will still fix the issues listed above regardless
of how much you've played.
------------------------------------------------------------- -
Made the trigger bricks in Wrong easier to see. If you install the
patch before entering the prison of Wrong you will see this change.
- In the Terfin dungeon the game would sometimes crash if you
placed all of the black gate pieces in the circle too quickly.
Cleaned this up so it works properly in all situations. If you
install the patch before you enter the Terfin dungeon you will see
this change. - Created a way for you to keep the Mage Shield once
you've found it. If you install the patch before you arrive in
Britannia you will see this change. --- Return to the Contents More Information: The following note
was dropped by CapnBill (LeadProgrammer) on the official boards
(11-30-99): Game design issues: The problems we'll be looking to
fix in future patches won't be related to game design, unless
they're plot-stoppers. In other words, there isn't much we can do
about requests for more NPC schedules, etc. But, there are things
we can do about blatant bugs (creatures standing still while you
hit them, plot-stoppers, etc). Before we shipped, all our testers
played through the game in its entirety; we fixed every plot
problem we identified. We never had any intention of treating you
like Beta testers! So, the game is play-through-able as is..and,
it's getting better, largely as a result of all the feedback here.
So, thanks, and please be patient! 0.4 Problems with patch 1.05f 0.4.1 Invalid Pixel
format error does still appear A: In some cases, installing the
1.05f patch does not fix the "Pixel format invalid as specified"
error that occurs with NVidia cards using the 3.53 drivers. My
specific case was a GeForce (Creative Labs Annhilator) with
NVidia's 3.53 Detonator drivers and Direct X 7. After installing
the patch I was still receiving the same error message. I had
previously played the game using a Voodoo 2. In order to fix this:
copy or move the "Savegame" directory under U9 to another drive or
directory and then uninstall Ultima 9. The reinstall Ultima 9 as
you did before, choosing your D3D board during the hardware setup.
Before starting the game, run the 1.05f patch. Then move your
"Savegame" directory back into the Ultima 9 directory (choose "Yes
to all" when it asks if you should overwrite the directory).
Apparently the patch does not work correctly if you've already run
the game. This shouldn't be a problem for those people who were
never able to get it running in the first place, but if you were
playing previously with a Voodoo card or some other D3D card other
than an NVidia, you may need to try this. 0.4.1 Version Number
after Patching same as before? The Patching failed. Make sure you
did not use a *cracked U9.exe* as the patch upates the encrypted
exe. 0.4.2 Patching fails for patch #1 (1.05f) Q: The patch does
not apply. A: (CapnBill) The mantra for Patch#1 is -ignoremissing.
Use from the command line. go into your U9 directory; copy the
U9PATCH.EXE file into that directory. Type U9PATCH -ignoremissing.
Verify that your Journal now says v1.05f. Return to the Contents 0.5 Problems with patch 1.07f 0.5.1 Valoria
BUG: Several Users, including me, have experienced trouble in the
city the gargolyes, Valoria.
A: Patch #1.18f seems to fix this 0.5.2 Unable to start after
applying 1.07f: Invalid Caps, invalid pixelformat or similar
error.
A: this is connected with installed compressed textures in the most
cases reinstalling the game without compressed textures works fine.
also, please check d3d.txt for more
information on your best graphic card settings 0.5.3 Version Number
after Patching same as before (check in journal)? The Patching
failed. Make sure you did not use a *cracked U9.exe* as the patch
upates the encrypted exe.
Authors: Windforce
Dragon & DarkSharp Html Conversion:
Justin Swanhart Release-Date: 2000-02-10 Version: 1.6 Latest
version URL: http://www.gulbsoft.de/faq.latest.html (html) Latest
version URL: http://www.gulbsoft.de/faq.latest.txt (txt) For
changes check the revision history!
Many people are experiencing problems running Ultima IX: Ascension.
In the interest of consolidation, we have scanned the forums of the
UIX/OSI official boards, Horizons and EA support culling these bits
of information into a FAQ. Sorry, we forgot to credit many of the
posters, we figured getting the information into the hands of
players quickly was more important than credits. ** INSTALL
THE LATEST PATCH BEFORE TRYING TO FIX
ANYTHING! ** Caveat: These are nothing more than
suggestions and are not guaranteed to work. Use them at your own
risk. we do not even have the game yet (lousy EB) Note: We would
love for someone with serious knowledge of API's, Win 98/2000k to
take this over and embellish it with their knowledge and
experience. If you are interested, contact us: (darksharp@bendcable.com) or
Windforce Dragon (windforce@gulbsoft.de)
Please do not contact us regarding questions on how to fix your
problems.
As we are not techical wiz's, your questions will be ignored.
Sorry. Note: THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE FAQ
(Except Gameplay issues which might be considered to have some very
minor spoilers).
Personal Note (02/2k) ---------------------- ORIGIN has decided to
close down the official UIX boards. They also stated that there
will be no more patches for the product. This is very bad style IMO
(windforce) and seems to prove right those who stated that origin
is only after the gamers money. I think they killed the boards to
remove negative PR prior to the european release of the game.
DISCLAIMER
The author of this FAQ is not liable for any damage that may
occur to your hard or software by using any of the tips in this
FAQ. Use at your own risk Ultima IX Ascension (UIXA, UA, UIX,U9) is
a registered trademark of Origin Systems and EA. All trademarks
belong to their respective owners. Contents
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